Podcast appearances and mentions of Robert Gordon

David "Ghosty" Wills, host of "We Say Yeah: A Cliff Richard Podcast" and the Vintage Rock and Pop Shop joins Justin this week to explore how the "rockabilly revival" era, which technically spanned a near 20-year period between roughly 1970-1990 but culminated around 1981-83, led to the release of two compilations of Elvis material that RCA felt best captured his image as a rebellious rock and roll icon. From the 50s nostalgia of the 1970s to the success of acts like The Stray Cats, Robert Gordon, Dave Edmunds and Shakin' Stevens, Justin picks Ghosty's brain for his memories of becoming a young Elvis fan during this fascinating period of revitalization for classic rock and roll. For Song of the Week, Ghosty brings a thought-provoking finale to the main topic by looking for insights in The Stray Cats's 1992 recording "Elvis on Velvet;" a psychobilly takedown of the media's intense (and weird) fascinations with Elvis. Meanwhile, Justin heads back to the '50s myself to hear how Elvis transformed the country standard "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" into a jaunty, bopping tune on the 1957 "Loving You" album. Be sure to check out "We Say Yeah!" on all major podcast platforms! As mentioned early in the episode, you can also hear Ghosty interviewed about his work as a voice actor on the podcast "4Kids Flashback." If you enjoy TCBCast, please consider supporting us with a donation at Patreon.com/TCBCast. Your support allows us to continue to provide thoughtful, provocative, challenging and well-researched perspectives on Elvis's career, his peers and influences, and his cultural impact and legacy.

Aquesta setmana al Males Vibracions tenim la visita d'Eduard Muñoz am la seua secció "Ni tan mal" on ens porta estadístiques de les que fan mal. Rubén, Andreu i l'Òscar ens porten les altres parts del programa, és a dir, novetats, Agenda Vibradora, i músiques variades. Llistat: New York Dolls - Trash; The Guilteens - Further Down The Channel; Nix & The Nothings - Cry on that; Pryca - Jji Jaja; Granicus - Bad Talk; John Primer - You mean so much to me; TELEPATH BOYS - Amras; Violet Mistake - Liliby; Sylvie Vartan - Si je chante; Sandie Shaw - Puppet on a String; Anita Ward- Ring My Bell; Sweatmaster - I am a demon and I love Rock'n'Roll; The Demoniacs - Demon Garage; Buenas Noches Rose - La Carretera; Rita Pavone - IL GEGHEGÉ; Robert Gordon & Link Wray - Lonesome Train (On A Lonesome Track); Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You.

Claire de Mézerville López welcomes Nicole Garcia Diaz and Robert Gordon to this special episode of the Restorative Works! Podcast, recorded live during the IIRP Collaborative Center for Restorative Practices in Higher Education's virtual forum on December 5-6, 2024! Robert and Nicole share their personal journeys with restorative practices, highlighting how they've integrated restorative justice and community-building principles into their respective campuses. From fostering inclusive, intersectional spaces at Hampshire College to reshaping student conduct processes at the University of Maryland, both guests emphasize the importance of embracing values rooted in restorative practices as a holistic approach to community engagement and institutional change. Throughout the discussion, the guests reflect on the recent sessions at the forum that resonated most with their work. Nicole focuses on the importance of honoring restorative practices' indigenous roots and the ethical responsibility practitioners have in upholding its traditions. Meanwhile, Robert underscores the necessity of community-building across cultural lines and the role of restorative principles in transforming campus cultures. Both emphasize that restorative practices are not just tools or methodologies but a way of being that shapes how we interact and move through the world. Nicole Garcia Diaz is the restorative justice specialist and manager for Rights and Responsibilities at the University of Maryland, College Park where she has led the integration of restorative practices and restorative justice within the university. Passionate about intentional philosophical alignment and practicing restorative justice with respect to its indigenous roots, Nicole has focused on slowly shifting the University's culture in the direction of these values. Nicole also serves on the University's Hate Bias Response Team, facilitates the Latina/x/es in Higher Education Affinity Group, is a yoga instructor, and volunteers with the Smithsonian Museum of the American Latino. Originally from Miami, Florida, Nicole graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education from the University of Miami, a Master of Education in Student Affairs from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Graduate Certificate in Restorative Justice Facilitation and Leadership from the University of San Diego. Robert Gordon is a restorative practitioner and implementor at Hampshire College. He has worked with several offices and departments throughout the college to deepen institutional awareness and utilization of a restorative practices-based mindset. Particularly, his work with campus identity centers has brought together staff and students of different social identities using intersectional forms of community building. In terms of restorative practices, Robert has received professional development from the IIRP, as well as the American Association of Colleges and Universities Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation framework. Tune in to hear about the challenges and rewards of implementing restorative justice in colleges and universities and learn how these practices can pave the way for more inclusive, supportive, and collaborative academic environments.

Jim reflects on one of the first "Big Monster" movies he saw growing up, 1955's Classic, "It Cam From Beneath The Sea," featuring the work of Ray Harryhausen and starring Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis, Ian Keith, Dean Maddox, and Harry Lauter. Produced by Charles Schneer and directed by Robert Gordon, the effects from this film continued to establish Harryhausen as one of the best special effects men in the business. A giant octopus threatens San Francisco. How will will it be stopped? Find out on this episode of MONSTER ATTACK!, The Podcast Dedicated To Old Monster Movies.

Jim reflects on one of the first “Big Monster” movies he saw growing up, 1955’s Classic, “It Cam From Beneath The Sea,” featuring the work of Ray Harryhausen and starring Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis, Ian Keith, Dean Maddox, and Harry Lauter. Produced by Charles Schneer and directed by Robert Gordon, the effects from […] The post It Came From Beneath The Sea | Episode 450 appeared first on The ESO Network.

In this episode, Nick sits down with the brilliant Robert Gordon for an insightful and entertaining conversation. Together, they reflect on Robert's eventful 2024, delving into the highlights of the year, including his thoughts on the latest revival of Oliver! and the new musical of The Devil Wears Prada.  The conversation then takes a fascinating turn as Robert discusses the first-ever concept musical, Love Life. Recently brought to life by Opera North in Leeds, this groundbreaking piece of musical theatre history sparks a rich discussion about its relevance, impact, and timeless themes. Love Life is a landmark piece in the history of musical theatre, often considered the first "concept musical." It premiered on Broadway in 1948, featuring music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. The show stands out for its innovative structure and thematic depth, offering a satirical exploration of the American Dream and the challenges of modern relationships.  See how it links to a classic Disneyland attraction... 

How do you balance being a practitioner and an academic? In this episode, Bill Sherman talks with Dr. Robert Gordon, interim department chair for analytics, economics, and finance at American Public University about his unique journey from the world of cruise ships and supply chain to academia, research, and thought leadership. Robert shares his experience moving from practitioner to academic, and now returning to bridge the gap between the two. His expertise in supply chain management, particularly in the maritime and cruise industries, provided the foundation for a shift into research and publishing that impacted both academia and industry. Robert's research on virtual teams and complexity theory was initially seen as niche, but when the pandemic hit, his work became highly relevant. The shift to remote work made his insights on virtual teams essential reading. He highlights the importance of staying connected to practitioners through conversations and continuous publishing to keep his research relevant. Robert's story is a reminder that thought leadership is not a static process. It's about continually evolving, reflecting, and bridging the gap between theory and practice. Three Key Takeaways: • Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Industry: Robert Gordon emphasizes the importance of staying connected to practitioners while conducting academic research, ensuring his work remains relevant and actionable in real-world settings. • The Power of Reflection in Thought Leadership: Robert highlights how reflecting on past work is crucial for growth, allowing him to evolve his ideas, improve his writing, and adapt to the changing needs of his audience. • Virtual Teams and Complexity Theory Gaining Relevance: What was once considered niche research became vital during the pandemic, as organizations around the world shifted to remote work, validating the importance of anticipating future trends in research. Robert knows the importance of academic research to practitioners.  In this video Thought Leadership Leverage CEO Peter Winick explains how you can use academic research to build your thought leadership platform!

In this interview with Andrew Thomson, a Scottish seasoned professional in the energy sector, we delve into the multifaceted landscape of oil, renewable energy, and their global implications through a personal lens. Andrew shares his journey from working in the oil industry over 20 years to recently transitioning into nuclear and wind energy sectors. Through his experiences, he provides insights into the socioeconomic impact of oil, the challenges of transitioning to renewable energy, and the complexities of global politics that intertwine with the energy sector.Exploring Andrew's experiences working offshore in locations like Nigeria and Azerbaijan, the discussion uncovers the substantial influence of hydrocarbons and the cultural, socio-economic, and safety developments within the oil sector. The discussion delves into the critical role of energy across modern life, impacting everything from education to communication, while critiquing governmental actions on energy policies and advocating for a balanced energy strategy, similar to Japan's where currently works in setting up Wind Turbine Platforms (using much of the same technology as oil rigs). Furthermore, the dialogue highlights the philosophical and challenging practical shifts toward renewables, exploring political and economic challenges in this transition. Through Andrew's perspective, one can try to better attempt to begin to understand the global energy politics, the necessity of interdisciplinary approaches in energy careers, and the shifting dynamics in the energy sector.Time Stamps * 00:00 The Importance of Energy in Modern Life* 01:00 Introducing Andrew: From Oil to Climate-Friendly Energy* 01:46 Andrew's Background and Career Journey* 02:38 Life and Work in the Oil Industry* 07:34 Challenges and Dangers of Offshore Drilling* 10:54 The Culture and Lifestyle of Oil Workers* 20:58 Global Perspectives: Working in Africa and Beyond* 23:58 Corruption and Local Interactions in the Oil Industry* 38:09 A Costly Mistake and Cultural Reflections* 38:54 Corruption and Anti-Corruption Measures* 40:09 Cultural Differences and Acceptance* 41:13 Colonial Legacy and Historical Perspectives* 43:41 Nationalized vs. Private Oil Companies* 45:46 Transition to Renewable Energy in Japan* 46:12 Challenges in the Oil Industry* 48:22 Geopolitics and Energy Policies* 56:43 Experiences with Government Agencies* 01:03:56 Future Prospects and Peak Oil Debate* 01:08:06 Final Thoughts on Energy and PolicyHighlights and Quotes of Interest On Energy Source MixesJapan has a long term vision.It has a vision of a percentage mix of nuclear fossil fuels, renewables, whereas I feel like I'm fairly against it in my home country, in the UK, because we don't have a long term plan. We've had four prime ministers in the last two years. One of them wanted to build eight nuclear power stations, the next one to start fracking. I believe in an energy mix. I think there's a lot of irresponsibility talked about these days in terms of the energy transition. I do think there should be an energy mix.And then the one now wants to quadruple our offshore wind capacity in eight years, which is impossible. It's quite nonsensical. It's quite short term thinking. I'm not anti wind, I'm not pro oil, I'm not anti or pro any, anything. What I'm pro is a science based, long term, non subsidy, non corruption based market solution.On Incentives in Oil Vs “Renewables”So right now, it seems like oil is completely negative and then offshore wind is completely positive. You look at the motivations behind companies putting in offshore wind turbines or the service companies exactly the same as motivations behind all companies.Neither one is doing them. For anything other than to make money. And I think it's simplistic and a little bit silly to think that the boss of an oil company is some sort of J. R. Ewing, person that likes to run over puppies on the way home and the boss of an electricity company or a turbine installation company or whatever is some sort of, sandal wearing saint that doesn't care about money. Everyone in pretty much, I would say any corporation, that statistic about men are CEOs, they're psychopaths. All they care about is money. And I think there are a lot of like there's a lot of talk about subsidies in [renewables] On Oil's Beastly NatureIt only takes, one ignition source and then you're on top of a fireball…potential that the entire thing can blow up underneath your feet. On Life without Oil It's the world we have is impossible to have without oil. Sure. You can reduce it. It's going to run out eventually one day anyway.So reducing it is not a bad thing, but to pretend that you can just press stop and then you can put in a wind turbine is nonsensical. And the politicians know it's nonsensical as well.  The sheer scale of, Hydrocarbon involvement in our modern industrial life is so incredibly difficult to untangle. There's literally nothing more important than our energy because it ties into the availability of education and medicine and travel and communication. Right, without. some form of mass energy production. We're right back to the medieval ages.On The British State I speak from a very UK point of view because it's my country, it's my home. I feel As ever, the British state works against the British people, not for the British people, which is a contrast to some of the countries that we may look down our noses on a little bit more as not developed, where, and Japan is a great example of this, where Japan seems to do things for the benefit of Japanese people, which seems to be a controversial idea back home. Learning from Travel This is part of, traveling. You see so many countries where people are so proud of their country. Nigerians were some of the most proud people I think I've ever met, and it's the same in Japan. And I worry the direction our country's going, both the UK and the US, when we were raising a generation of children who are being taught to be embarrassed by where they come from. Though I really feel like in the West we've made a mistake over the years in trying to impose our way of looking at the world on other cultures.Post Interview Notes / Links from AndrewHere are some relevant links that might be of interest:"Empire of Dust", a fascinating documentary widely referenced online, but with no major release I don't think, that shows interaction between a Chinese contractor and locals in the DRC. It's a perfect example of culture clash, the strength in the documentary being there is no western-style narrative, it's simply two very different cultures interacting honestly with each other. The film-maker is Belgian which is particularly interesting given their colonial history in the DRC.Watch @ https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5gdfm4I can particularly recommend Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness if you're interested in the dark side of colonialism, or any history of DRC or Zaire as it was. One of my favourite films is Apocalypse Now, which along with the book perfectly makes the point I was trying to, which is how these cultures are manifestly different from ours, and any attempt to convert or run these societies in a western way will ultimately end up in failure, unless it's done by complete dominance, which of course, is wrong. It's a subject I find really interesting, and my experiences in Africa really changed how I view the world.On Energy Prices “Strike Prices” and Renewables Some links explaining the Strike Price for electricity set through the CfD (Contract for Difference) mechanism that guarantees a specific rate for electricity to renewables companies.https://www.iea.org/policies/5731-contract-for-difference-cfdhttps://www.eurelectric.org/in-detail/cfds_explainer/ It's quite hard to find a non-biased article explaining this, but the basic mechanism is:What isn't always mentioned is the "top-up" when the price falls is paid to the generators by the consumer, in the UK at least, in the form of a levy on the electricity price. Which is fine in theory to have a set electricity price, but currently the UK has the 3rd highest electricity costs in the world:https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cost-of-electricity-by-countryOn British Embassy Support (Weapons:Yes / Hydrocarbons: No)UK government ending support for oil and gas sector abroad:https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-the-uk-will-end-support-for-fossil-fuel-sector-overseasBut no issue promoting UK weapons manufacturers:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/3/15/uk-spent-1-3m-on-security-for-worlds-biggest-weapons-fairSubsidies provided to the oil and gas industry in the US: (this can be complicated to assess because the IMF considers environmental and health costs after production as an effective subsidy, whereas the OECD and the IEA do not)https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-fossil-fuel-subsidies-a-closer-look-at-tax-breaks-and-societal-costsCorrection on Refinery Capacity in NigeriaI was slightly mistaken, there is some refinery capacity in Nigeria, in fact it's the highest in all of Africa, however it is still around half of what Houston alone produces per day.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13203-018-0211-zOn Oil Piracy / Theft (Discussed During Interview as Another Source for Danger / Volatility / Environmental Damage) Oil pipeline theft still seems to be a problem in Nigeria sadly:https://www.pipeline-journal.net/news/explosion-nigeria-oil-pipeline-kills-12-shell-blames-crude-oil-theft-tragedyOn Working in the Pubic SectorI was thinking about one of your last questions afterwards, whether I'd ever work for the government. You know, I would actually love it, to be able to make some type of positive impact, I'd really enjoy that much more than my current job, it's just that what I would advocate is so far in the opposite direction of the UK foreign office and civil service's ethos (non-judgmental promotion of UK interest and people without imposing change on other countries) that I wouldn't get the opportunity. The British sitcom "Yes Minister" captures perfectly how the UK establishment works, it's from the 80s but still very relevant. It works to ensure the continued existence of the establishment, not the general population.AI Machine Transcription - Enjoy the Glitches!Andrew: The sheer scale of, Hydrocarbon involvement in our modern industrial life is so incredibly difficult to untangle.There's literally nothing more important than our energy because it ties into the availability of education and medicine and travel and communication. Right, without. some form of mass energy production. We're right back to the medieval ages.Leafbox: Andrew, thanks so much for making time for me. I know you're a busy guy. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Actually, when I first met you, I was actually fascinated with your work because you're one of the few people I know who has jumped from the oil sector to a climate friendly energy sector, I call it, so I was very curious about your perspectives on both. Having, your wife told me that you lived in Baku and that alone, it is probably a book's worth of questions. Andrew, why don't we just start tell us who you are, where you are, what's the weather like in Fukuoka? And where are you from?Andrew: Well, the most important thing the seasons in Japan seem to follow rules like the rest of Japan. So it's got the memo recently that it's not summer anymore, which is great because summers here are pretty brutal. And it's cloudy and rainy, which from someone from Scotland is nice and familiar.Yeah, I guess be brief biography. I'm Scottish from the North of Scotland. This is usually the point where someone says, well, you don't sound Scottish, but that's because I was born down in England. But moved up Scott, two parents from very remote rural part of Scotland. And we moved up when I was about six.So I went to the local university Aberdeen which at the time was the oil capital of Europe. So with a passion for engineering and a desire to Just have adventure really as a young guy wanting to see the world. Also oil is always historically been very well paid. Probably along the lines of, I don't know, market wise, your career options, lawyer, doctor, that sort of thing, which was never really my interest in an oil worker.So anyway financial motivations, adventure motivations, just an interest in big, heavy engineering pushed me in that direction. I joined, graduated, I took a master's in offshore engineering graduated and joined Halliburton about six weeks before 9 11. So this was in the year of of Dick Cheney, of course then I eventually ended up working offshore.For a company that worked on drilling rigs, doing directional surveys, so you would run drilling tools down the well and that was quite life changing, really very exciting. A lot of. Pressure. This is all gonna make me sound very old, but pre smartphone days. So you were a lot more on your own in those days.I did that for four years. Then I ended up running operations in Lagos, Nigeria. Did that for three years, joined a Norwegian company, worked for them in Aberdeen, and then again, oil service. And ended up running their operations in Baku and Azerbaijan. Then COVID came along and like for a lot of people turned the world upside down.So with the low oil price ended up being made redundant and Really struggled for about a year or so to find work and then it wasn't ideological either one way or another in terms of the energy transition, it's quite heavily marketed these days but I'm not overly convinced that it's as easy as politicians seem to say it is but I took a job for a company drilling offshore foundations.And I was working on a nuclear power station, the cooling shafts for a nuclear power station. And then I simply got a job offer one day an online recruiter to come to Japan to work on offshore wind which has some, Close. It's basically the same things I was doing, except it was in nuclear.So yeah, none of it's been a straight line or a plan, but just the opportunity came up. We really wanted to have another period abroad. So we took the move and then I find myself on a beach speaking to yourself after about a year or so. Leafbox: So Andrew, going back to university time, exactly what did you study? Was this petroleum engineering? Or Andrew: It was no, it was mechanical engineering. But being in it was Robert Gordon university in Aberdeen, but being in Aberdeen, it was very heavily oil influenced at the time. I was actually. obsessed with cars and motorbikes, anything with an engine. So I really wanted to do automotive, but I didn't have the grades to go to a lot of the bigger universities down South.And I was 16 when I went to university and didn't really want to go too far. So I did mechanical. And then that led on to a degree in offshore engineering at the same university, which was completely oil focused. Leafbox: And then Andrew, can you tell me a little bit about the makeup of, the demographics of when you entered the oil industry and especially in Scotland and what were these offshore platforms like, you have engineers with high degrees and then what about the workers themselves?Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. So, your average rig is made up of a lot of different job functions. At the top or guess with the most responsibility. So you've got your company that own the rig. They're the drilling contractor and they have their personnel the guy that manages the rig, and then they have all different personnel, including all the deck crew and all the roughnecks raised about, but then you have the oil company that contracts them.And they have someone offshore running it, but they have a lot of engineers. And then you have all these like service companies, which is what I've worked for that come in and do things. So you typically have on the oil company sides. You'd have someone with, degrees, you'd have like their graduate programs, you'd have young people coming offshore, their first time offshore, but they'd be quite high up relatively.And then you would have your deck crew, mechanics, electricians, which typically weren't university educated. And the guys right at the very top who'd be like, Oh, I am like the rig manager generally, especially in the old days, wouldn't be university educated, but they would just have worked offshore for a very long time.So that they'd be very knowledgeable and skilled in what we're doing. A lot of them took degrees as, technology increased. And it became, more important to have a degree, but especially in the old days, although I think at that level in that job, people wouldn't have had degrees, but you do have, it is a big mix between like I said, your deck crew and the people that are more like the, engineers, geologists, et cetera.And I can't speak for every region, but you do find that you've got, so say the comparative salary or career prospects of a welder, or a mechanic or somewhere you've suddenly got someone who could earn, I don't know, in the U S but in the UK, maybe Twenty five twenty twenty five thousand pounds a year.Maybe, like three years ago in their offshore making like 60, and it's I think it's the same thing in the U. S. you have people from very poor areas that can go offshore and just, quadruple more there their salaries and it's a, But there's a reason why they're, there's a reason why they're getting paid that is because it's a lot more difficult and dangerous when you're away from home and stuff. It's a strange old mix in a lot of ways. Leafbox: And then can you describe for people just what the actual dangers are? Give people an image of what these platforms are like to be on them and how to build them and the complexity of these devices.Andrew: There's so you have there's a lot of different forms, but basically you have a drilling rig. which can be like a semi submersible which floats or a jack up which legs are like sitting on the ground or you could even have a ship that comes like, it all depends on the the depth of the water depth usually.So you'll have this vessel that drills a well and then eventually, so they'll drill a number of wells and then you'll have a platform which is fixed to the seabed usually and then that can that has like a. A wellhead that connects all the wells and then takes the hydrocarbons on board and then it might pump it to another bigger platform or it pumps it to some like somewhere where it's processed and then it's pumped on shore.There's different. There's common dangers. Everything from there've been a number of helicopter incidents over the years. Generally, a lot of these rigs are so far away that you'll take a, you'll take a chopper backwards and forwards. And it's been well documented of things like gearbox failures and stuff.You're probably one of the biggest, I don't have the HSC statistics in front of me, but one of the biggest injuries are probably slips, trips and falls. Because, your average drilling rig has maybe four or five levels to it, and you're up and down stairs all day with big boots on and a hard hat and glasses and stuff, and people tripping on themselves.Obviously drilling, you've got well you've got a lot of overhead lifts, a lot of people get injured with the fingers getting caught between loads roughnecks, raced abouts on the drill floor when they're handling drilling pipe. I've met a lot of people over the years that have got one or more fingers missing, because it's very easy to get your finger nipped between two things are being lifted, especially when people put their hands on to try and direct them.And then obviously the pressure of the hydrocarbons look at deep water horizon, for example the oil and the gas, It's funny listening to your podcast with Jed about oil being sentient that the pressure that the oil is under.So when you tap into, obviously it wants to go, it wants to go up and out. And then that could literally rip a rig apart if it's not if it's not controlled. And then obviously you've got the ignition risk, which, you've got Piper Alpha in the UK and you've got, like I say, Deepwater Horizon, there's been a number of rig explosions and then going back to what I said about platforms.So Piper Alpha was a platform and that was processing gas. So you have 100 and 170, 200 odd people working and living. on a structure offshore where there are like an enormous amount of gas that's being pumped. extracted and pumped like underneath their feet and it only takes, one ignition source and then you're on top of a fireball.And I remember being offshore when they're flaring, which is a process whereby they burn off excess gas and just being stunned by the ferocity of the noise, nevermind the heat of the, that it's just like a primal hour, you, you can stand a couple of hundred. Yards away from it and you can feel it on your face, it's just, it's very different.I've been offshore on a wind turbine installation vessel, which has the same offshore industrial risks in terms of lifted injuries, slips, trips, and falls and suspended loads. But you don't have that. You don't have that like potential that the entire thing can blow up underneath your feet.Leafbox: So with this danger and this kind of. wild beast underneath you. How did the men and women respond? You had in your email, a little bit of this kind of cowboy culture. I'm curious what the culture of these workers are like, and maybe in Scotland and what you've seen around the world. If these people aren't usually they're more working class or what's the relationship with them and the engineers and yeah, tell me about that.Andrew: It's it's a very, it's a very masculine environment. That's not to say that there aren't women offshore in the industry. There, there absolutely are. And there, there are more and more these days especially in certain countries, like in Scandinavia, for instance But it's a very, especially when you get down to the deck crew, it's a very, the recruits are very masculine, very like macho environment.It's quite a tough environment. It's a very hard working environment. The it's not that people I wouldn't say a matter of fact to say the opposite in terms of people having a cavalier attitude to safety. There have been a number of incidents over the years in the industry and each incident spurred along quite a lot of improvements in health and safety.So I'd say probably in terms of. Industry, it's probably one of the safest industries, well, it's probably one of the industries with the best safety attitude. I'm sure maybe nuclear is probably up there as well, but people are aware offshore of the risks. There's a huge QHSE industry.There's a, most companies have some form of a HSE system, which allows anyone from someone who works for the camp boss, like someone who changes the sheets, the cleaners, the cooks to like the driller can stop operations if they think that something is dangerous and there can't be any comeback, and stopping operations offshore is a big deal.Because the average. Rigorate is, it fluctuates, but the average is, I don't know, a few hundred thousand, I don't know what it is at the moment, but let's say up to maybe a half a million more for the biggest rates, biggest rigs per day. That's what, 20, 000 an hour. So if you see something that's dangerous and you stop it for a couple of hours that's a lot of money.So it takes a lot of nerve to do that, but the industry has been pretty good. They have these systems called stop cards. Like I say, Different companies have different names for it, but it gives the ability to It gives you authority for someone not to be forced into doing something that they think is dangerous.So overall, I actually think the health and safety culture is quite good. But if you look at Deepwater Horizon, that was a classic example of even at the corporate level, people being frightened to say no and frightened to halt operations. So that does still persist due to the sheer amount of money involved.Leafbox: And then tell me about in your email, you had a quote line about, these workers spending their money, maybe not as wisely. I'm curious to describe and understand the cowboy. I have this image, my father worked for Exxon for a long time. And his biggest problem was piracy. They had so much issues with piracy, but this was in the Caribbean. So it's just constantly people stealing oil from them. So maybe yeah, tell me how it is now after I guess 2000s, how it's changed. You're describing this very safe sounding MBA driven culture, but I have trouble.Yeah. Tell me what it's like around the world. Andrew: So that's the sort of the day to day attitude offshore, which is pushed very heavily by the oil companies. It's a lot of recording. They record lost time statistics which also not to get sidetracked, but that has a slightly negative effect as well in terms of if a rig has, say.That they'll, quite often rigs will have a big display when you arrive and it says this amount of days from the last accident and if they go like a year without any LTIs, everyone on the rig could get like an iPad or some sort of bonus or something and it's a big deal not to have incidents that cause a loss of time and that, by that if someone has to go to hospital, someone has to leave the rig, but that also does encourage it can encourage hiding of things, someone maybe, they've smashed their finger, but can they just maybe report it, but maybe just go on like light duties or something rather than go to the hospital before, before their shift change sort of thing which does happen and it's not healthy.But anyway, to get back to your point I think it comes from, as I say it's, a way for someone who would have no other avenue to earn the amount of money that they would get offshore by taking on the additional risk and being away from home. So say an electrician, your average construction electrician wages are probably pretty good these days, but if you take someone working in, some rural place in, in the States who is like a car mechanic or something, and then they go offshore And they're multiplying their salary, but they're multiplying their salary, perhaps coming from an environment where no one's ever had that type of money.They're coming home with maybe try to think of some people I've known, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year when their salary may have been I don't know, sub six figures, but they don't come from an environment where that sort of money is common. So you then have a situation whereby they are the one person in their family or town or their local bar.who has loads of money, who's been away from home for four weeks, but he doesn't have the most stable relationship precisely because they're not at home, but yet they've got loads of money and loads of time. You can see how that can encourage perhaps resentment. Or just a feeling of alienation from that community.That sort of person, say they have a lot more money than their friends, maybe they want to buy them drinks, but then do they want to have to do that all the time? I've known people that have been divorced multiple times, that have bought boats and all sorts of things that they never use and they end up with, paying for There are families that they never see, the families that get remarried, the kids that they never see.I've worked with directional drillers that I've got a wife in one country, an ex wife in another country, kids that don't like them, and they just pay for all these families. They get onshore and then they spend the next couple of weeks with some, teenage prostitute blowing all the money on that drink for the rest of the month and then they're back offshore.the shakes and then they decompress over the month and then the cycle repeats itself. So in the one sense, it's a fantastic opportunity for social mobility, but it also can leave a lot of chaos behind it. And I'm certainly not at all. And having come from a work class background myself, I'm not certainly saying that.It shouldn't be there. I think it's a positive thing and it's up to these people what they want to do with their money. I'm just saying it's an interest in social observance that it's, you don't get that many working class people that can leave school and have a manual trade and can go and be a lawyer or a doctor or a CEO but you are all of a sudden getting these people in situations who are making the same amount of money, but without the family structure.Or the societal structure that can prepare them for that.Leafbox: Jumping to the next topic, I'm curious, you first mentioned Dick Cheney, what was your relationship, you're in Scotland, and how does that fiddle in with the Middle East? oil wars and just the general kind of, I feel like when my father worked in oil, there wasn't that much of a hostility in the general environment.It was just people drove cars and you worked in the oil industry and it wasn't that. So in post 2000, I would say things change both from the climate perspective and then from the kind of American imperialist association with oil. Andrew: It's changed massively in terms of hostility. Just, it's just like night and day. So when I graduated, I remember being at school in the early nineties and there was, I don't think it was climate, no, no global warming. It was called then. So there was discussion of it.But the greenhouse the ozone layer was the big deal. And there was environmentalism, Greenpeace was quite big at that time. But. The, there was no stigma like whatsoever into going into the oil industry. And you could see that in terms of the courses at the time they were called there was like drilling engineering courses, offshore engineering courses petroleum engineering.You go back to the same universities now and it's like energy transition. I think you'll struggle to find that many courses that have got the words petroleum or drilling in it. And also it was very easy to get a job in those days in the industry. The, yeah the Gulf War, so the second Gulf War at the time working for Halliburton, I was very conscious of, it was very interesting to me how the company was structured.So you had Halliburton Energy Services and you had KBR, Kellogg, Brennan, Root, and they were the company that won the uncontested contract to rebuild in Iraq. But the way the company was structured. Was that they were that they were split up basically. So if one of them had gone down the toilet for any of these issues, they were separated.I was very happy to join Haliburton. It was a big career wise. I thought it was very good. I look back now, it's funny how I look back, like inside, I look back on that whole Iraq war with absolute horror now, but I had grown up with Free internet with, what at the time were considered authoritative news sources with the BBC and British newspapers.It might sound naive, but you believe that people are doing the right thing. And I just thought at the time that, that, we were going into Iraq because it was a very bad person there. And I look back now, with I look at Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and all the things that have happened with absolute horror.But at the time it just seemed quite straightforward. My, my view on the oil industry hasn't changed in terms of, I, I believe in an energy mix. I think there's a lot of irresponsibility talked about these days in terms of the energy transition. I do think there should be an energy mix.I don't think it should be any one source of energy. But I feel like we're in the same position that we're in before except instead of it being everyone's desperate to make money out of oil. I think everyone's desperate to make money out of renewables these days. Leafbox: Well, before we jump to that point, I want to I think that's a big topic we'll go to, but tell me about your jump to Nigeria.You're still naive then, or eager help, Nigerian oil industry or what you get assigned to Nigeria. What's that like? Andrew: Well, so I so that four years of us, so the three years I worked for that company originally was on it was on an ad hoc basis. So basically I would be at home. I'd get a phone call.And I could, I had to live within 45 minutes of the airport but I usually got at least a day. Sometimes it wasn't, it will, it was literally a day. Sometimes it was like a week, but I would get a call and then I could go anywhere in a region was Europe, Africa, Caspian. So I could go anywhere.Most of it was in West Africa. So I would go and work offshore in the Congo. Not the DRC, but the Republic of Congo Gabon, Nigeria, but all over Europe and occasionally like the Far East. So I had a lot of experience of Africa at that point. My very first, one thing I did want to, I was thinking the other day, one thing I did want to mention was when I first went, in terms of naivety, when I first time I ever went to Africa was in the Congo.And I'd grown up in the eighties where we had Live Aid was basically anyone's kind of opinion of Africa. And I remember at school we used to be forced to sing Do They Know It's Christmas, like every Christmas. So that was everyone's opinion of Africa was like just basically starving children. And I arrived in the Congo.They've got quite a decent airport now in Point Noir, but when I arrived it was literally a concrete shed with arrivals on one side and departures on the other and just like sand on the ground. And I can't remember coming out of that totally by myself just with my Nokia phone with the local contacts phone number and all these little kids appeared like Tugging it, tugging at my trousers asking for money and I was absolutely horrified I'd never seen like poverty like that and I felt horrible that I couldn't help them.But it's funny how You not that I don't care about children, but you harden yourself to what the reality of life is like in places like that. And I did that for three years. I was in Angola rotating for a year. In Cabinda, which is a chevron camp. And then I I got the job in Nigeria.And actually my father passed away just before I got that job. So I was a bit rudderless at that point. I really enjoyed it got to me in the end, I was there for three years and I started to get very frustrated when I was at home, that's when I thought I need to make a change.But there's a sort of happy level of chaos, I found. It's. in Nigeria, where things are, they don't work in the sense that they would do in, in, in what you'd call, developed countries. You can't rely on things to work. You can't really rely on people in a certain sense, but there's a sort of happy, it's difficult to explain.Like it's just, It's a very chaotic place, a very noisy, chaotic place. But once you accept that it's quite a good laugh actually. I have some quite happy memories from working there. Leafbox: So Andrew, when you enter in these places you first described your kind of exposure to Congo, but how do you conceptualize the interaction between the Western oil companies and I guess the local developing country?Do you think about that? Or are all the workers local? Or is everyone imported from all over the world? And Andrew: There's a big move towards localization in pretty much any location I've been which is, which has changed over the years. So when I first started working say in Africa, as an example.Pretty much all of the deck crew, all of the roughnecks were all Africans or locals from whichever ever country you're in. But once you got to the upper levels, like the Western oil companies, you would have, so you'd have like drill engineers, which weren't. You might describe them as like project managers of the drilling operations.So there you would have kind of a mix of locals and expats, but you pretty much always find once you went above that to like drilling managers. You'd find all what they call company men, which are the company's representative offshore, pretty much always expats. That has changed over the years, which I think is a very positive thing.A lot of countries, Azerbaijan's like this, a lot of countries in Africa, Nigeria is like this. They put within the contracts, like a local content. So for a company to win the license and which is then cascaded down to the subcontractors, you have to have a percentage of local employees and you have to have a system for replacing your senior people, training up locals and replacing them over time, which I think is very positive because after all, it's there.Oil is their resources. There are in certain locations with certain companies, a pretty bad history. Shell Nigeria, for example. You can your listeners can look all this up, but there have been, various controversies over the years on the whole, I think on the whole, I think.that it's a positive for these countries because I look at it in terms of a capitalist sort of capitalist approach that, you know and it's almost like the thing that I was saying where you have like someone who comes from a family or a class where they are not exposed to money and all of a sudden they have a huge amount of money where you could say the same thing with some tiny country where by a that they've had a level of civilization and a level of like income over the years and all of a sudden someone discovers oil and there's no way you can reasonably expect a society to just, you can't take somewhere that goes from like tribal pre industrial revolution conditions and make it New York City overnight.It's just, it's not going to happen. And just expanding that slightly, I was in Papua New Guinea in the eastern part And up in the highlands on a well site a while ago. And that was fascinating because Papua New Guinea is still, it's a country, but it's still very tribal. So once you leave Port Moresby you're really, it's not like you're going to call the police if someone tries to assault you or call an ambulance or something.It's very much like I say, pre industrial revolution, tribal. societies, but they're sitting on billions of dollars of gas. So you get these little pockets of on the shore drilling rigs. And they're just pumping millions and billions of dollars worth of gas out from under your feet, but they pay the locals.And the site that I was on right at the top of the hill overlooking it was a big mansion owned by the who, as soon as he started drilling, he would get 10 million. And then, as I was informed, would probably disappear down to Australia and, enrich the local casinos and stuff. But, who is to say that is, would it be great if he built a hospital and built a school and improved the lives of everyone around him?Oh, of course it would. But who's to say morally that we Chevron should be, I understand the point that maybe Chevron should be building these things, but who is to say that the condition should be attached to what that chief spends his money on. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I I think I place a lot of responsibility on hydrocarbons are located.I do think there have been a lot of very negative practices by By all companies over the years, and they absolutely have a duty to maintain the environment. But I think it's a bit hypocritical. I see a lot of rich Western countries, especially now saying to a lot of poorer, undeveloped countries that they shouldn't be drilling or they shouldn't be, should be using the money differently.And I think, well, it's their resource. I look at it more from a capitalist point of view, rather than, like I said in my email, I'm quite anti interventionist in that sense. So historically I'm going to, this continues now, but there have been issues with literally, so they put these big pipelines through people's villages and the way that a lot of these things are organized is like I said, about Papua New Guinea they'll contact, the tribal chief and we'll pay a rent or some sort of fee to, to put these big pipelines through, through these small places.But there are some times when, I haven't, I, the right tribal chief or they've not paid enough or there's some sort of dispute and you will get villagers literally drilling into these oil pipelines with drills and buckets to steal the oil. And of course someone's doing it and they're smoking or there's some sort of ignition source and the whole thing erupts and, the village is burnt and it's a horrible, tragedy but it's just it's a funny, again, it goes back to the theory of what I was saying, the juxtaposition of that very valuable resource with a very, with a civilization, with a community, probably better way of putting it, who has never had access to that amount of money.So you're literally pumping these, this thing through their village that is worth more money than they'll ever see in their lifetime. And obviously the temptation to try to take some of that. is there, almost like understandably, but then again it quite often results in a lot of death and destruction.So that's yeah, it's just it's part of the whole industry in a lot of ways. And other industries, when you look at things like lithium mining and diamonds and stuff, you have a very high value resource That has been, by pure chance, located in a very poor part of the world and it results in these tragedies sometimes.Leafbox: I was going to ask you about the processing of oil. So when export the raw crude. Mostly the oils and process somewhere else. You were, you're taking the oil from Nigeria. Like Venezuela, they have to ship it all to Houston or whatnot to get turned into different solvents and gasoline. And, Andrew: This is probably when I'll need some fact checking, but my recollection of the time in Nigeria was that they weren't processing the oil on shore.I stand corrected if that's wrong, but my understanding was that they weren't, or at least there wasn't very many refineries, so it was basically all, like you said, extracted and then sent abroad. To be refined. That's certainly the situation in in Papua New Guinea. A lot of it is turned an LPG there and then shipped abroad.I guess I would guess, I would assume that would be the situation in a lot of West African countries for a lot of reasons, you have an established. Supply chain, you have established skill set in other places, then it comes down to cost and then you have the security of, you can imagine the enormous amount of investment you would need in a refinery.And would you rather do that in a place that's had a history of civil war, or would you take the cost to ship it abroad and do it somewhere else, Leafbox: no, it's understandable. I think that's important for listeners to understand that. The refinery in Louisiana or whatnot, or, it's so massive, it's billions of dollars and it's such a dangerous place to work also. Right. Those are just like literally atomic bomb sized potential energy. Andrew: The one thing that, there's always been, say in Scotland, there's been a little bit of resentment towards, Aberdeen and they're all like rich up there from other places in Scotland, but I think that there is, people are aware of Deepwater Horizon and Piper Alpha, et cetera, but I do think that there has been an underappreciation of the, just the Crazy risks that are involved when you're working offshore and handling hydrocarbons.Like I said, you take a helicopter to work with all the risks that I had in, in tails, and then you spend a month or so working on top of something that is effectively, a bomb if if things aren't handled properly. And you're, how far away are you from like emergency services?There are supply vessels and stuff, but. It's very much an environment where you have to just be very careful and very aware of dangers, which I think the industry now has got very good at. But yeah, the wages are high, but they're high for a reason. It's not it's not an easy, it's not an easy job in terms of that.And like I alluded to before, in terms of family stability, working away and coming back is not really conducive quite often to, to a healthy home life.Leafbox: Going back to Angola for a second I read an account of the Chinese are very heavily in Luanda and Angola, and they had the terrible civil war.But one of the things that really stood out to me is that all the Chinese use Chinese labor. So their oil boats are all Chinese workers and they often use ex felons, which I thought was interesting. But there's, I guess they, all these ex felons in Angola, I don't know if you saw this, I wanted to confirm it, but there's a lot of half Chinese, half Angolan children now because all the Chinese roughnecks.They're all men. So there's a booming Angolan prostitution and it just was so wild. Angola think Luanda is the most expensive city in the world. But then the most violent too, so yeah, just what's your general impressionAndrew: I I've been in Luanda in total, probably just a couple of days.Most of my time was spent in a, so Chevron Texco have this place called Cabinda. Which is actually, technically speaking, if you look at the map, it's not actually connected to Angola, you've got Angola, then you've got a little gap, and then you've got Cabinda, which is the little gap is part of the DRC, I think but Cabinda is where all the onshore processing of the oil is.It's part of Angola and it's like a prisoner of war camp and you go up there and you can't leave pretty much until you've finished your work. But my impression of Lulanda wasn't great at all. I remember driving into it and there's these massive shanty towns on the edge of the city with just like literal rubbish tipped down the side of these hills.And then you get into the city and it's just a. massive continual traffic jam with Porsche Cayennes and Range Rovers and G Wagons. And it just felt in the way that I was describing Lagos and even Port Harcourt, which has a pretty bad reputation as a sort of, chaotic, but fun sort of chaos.I felt and this is just my personal impression, I felt Lwanda was chaos, but dangerous chaos. Not you wouldn't stay in a staff house there and you wouldn't go out for a drink anyway. You wouldn't even really go out for lunch much. You just stayed in. It looked to me like as if you'd taken a European city, which I guess it, that's how it was built.And then you just start maintaining it from like 1960s onwards, but then you'd add it in a civil war and I appreciate the civil war was like a proxy civil war and then just didn't repair any infrastructure and just peppered the whole place with like bullet holes.It wasn't, it was not particularly, it's not a place that I would recommend to be quite honest with you. In terms of the Middle East, the comparison with the Middle East I've not really worked that much in the Middle East, to be quite honest with you. I guess my closest is the Caspian, which is more Central Asia, but that was way more structured.Yes, there's massive amounts of corruption, massive amounts of poverty. But yeah, absolutely more structured and less chaotic in that sense. Leafbox: Andrew, what's the relationship in Nigeria, there's famous activists who, like the Shell, they polluted so heavily, but then I guess the military tribunals would erase or disappear people.Maybe this is before you worked there, but what, as, what was the relationship of the company men with the government? Was there open kind of corruption or? What was your general vibe of is the manager's job and kind of getting these contracts. Talk to me about that. Like Deanna, how did the, you know, Exxon versus Armco or whatever it is, whoever's ever getting these contracts, there's obviously backdoor dealings.Andrew: Yeah, in terms of, actual drilling licenses I was never near or even remotely near the people that will be making those sort of decisions. And I'm certainly not going to allege corruption at that level. And I don't have any evidence, but what I would say, and again, all of this is just my personal opinion.It's, I'm not disparaging any one particular place in general, but the level of corruption. that I would see was so endemic that I just came to feel it was cultural which again, it's not really don't want to make that sound like it's a slight, to me it was an understanding of I really feel, and just briefly going back to the whole Bob Geldof Live Aid thing, I really feel like in the West we've made a mistake over the years in trying to impose our way of looking at the world on other cultures.And what I would see in most West African countries was it was just an accepted way Of living, accepted way of dealing. So you would go to the airport. We used to have these boxes that would have electronic equipment in them. And we had to hand carry them cause they were quite fragile.And then you would go to the check in desk and they would be like okay, well we have to get some stairs to lift this into the plane. So that's an extra 50. I'm not sure you actually own this equipment. It's got another company written on it. You give me a hundred dollars.Sometimes it's not quite said, you'll just get so much hassle and you'd see other, you'd see some people there that would freak out in case thinking that they were gonna, arrested or something. They just open their wallet and hand over loads of money. The, but it's not it's not like some under the table nefarious plot it's just like the checking guy is getting paid next to nothing He sees someone who's obviously got all my money and he has How can I get that money off him and it's at every single level my I mean I suppose I would say I was wise to it, but even I would make naive mistakes.I remember on a leaving day when I left Nigeria I had this driver who I'd still consider a friend. I messaged him on Facebook sometimes, and he was a really nice young guy who would go out of his, literally out of his way to help me. And I made the silly mistake of handing in my bank card on my like, leaving due.I'd had a little bit to drink and I just thought, surely it'll be fine. And of course I get back to the UK, I check my statement and there's a couple of hundred dollars missing or a hundred pounds missing. At the time I was like, that must be a bank error, surely not. But I look back in it now and I just think, again, this isn't, this honestly isn't even a criticism, it's just the culture is to try and hustle.And if you, if it doesn't work, well, I tried. It's just, it's endemic in that sense. I don't doubt that there most likely have been over the years some very shady practices on the behalf of Western oil companies and Western governments. You only have to look at the history of, BP and the UK government and Americans in Iran and coups to get oil and all these sorts of things.But I'm just talking about like the corruption that I've seen, it seemed, Cultural in that sense. It's just everywhere. The one thing that I would say is that companies I've worked for within the contracts is very heavy anti corruption. So the FCPA, if I'm remembering that right, in the US. The anti corruption laws are very strong to the point where if a company official from a country, say like Scotland, is a manager and he signs off on a bribery expense, he can actually, if I'm right in recalling this, he can end up going to jail himself for that.So a hundred percent, I'm sure it's happening by at the same time legally, there are some very strict laws against it. Leafbox: When they just outsource to local sub providers, that's what I would imagine they do to get around that. Andrew: I think it's a case of well, just don't tell me sort of thing.Leafbox: Yeah. Andrew: I'm pretty sure that, that's why. Well, Leafbox: I think people don't understand if you haven't been to these countries, it's just it's just not Norway. It's not. Yeah. It's a very different. Yeah. Andrew: And. I, sorry to interrupt you, but I've done quite a bit of work in Norway and I have found that some countries and some cultures seem to have a difficulty accepting that the world isn't the way that they are.And I think that that, not to, not to boast or to my trumpet here, but I think that one thing that I've learned over the years is that some places they just are the way they are. And it's, of course you don't want to encourage. Corruption, you don't want to encourage mistreatment, but I don't believe it's your right.Like I'm like, I live in Japan now and some things, a lot of things about Japan I absolutely love, but there are also some things about Japan that just don't seem right to me. But it's not my place to come in and say, right, you're doing this wrong. You should be doing this the other way. It just isn't, it's not my country.And I felt the same way in Africa. There's loads of things about Nigeria that I was like, this is absolute madness. But it's their madness, it's not my madness, and I'm a guest in their country. Leafbox: What do you think the difference, in your email to me, you wrote about the colonial being British, how's that relationship been for you?You've, non interventionist now, but you wrote about, your forefathers or previous generations having quote, good intentions. Maybe tell me about that. Andrew: I think that I know that there's a lot in the UK as with America now that's quite, there's a lot of attempt to be revisionist within history and question history, which I'm a big fan of people questioning history.I just think once again, that we are tending to look at things from a very Western point of view without taking into account like global history. I know believe, through my experience of traveling, I now think, well, exactly like what I just said, I don't think it's our place to change countries to mold them in our ways, but I do have a more charitable view of a lot of our maybe not every one of them, certainly not every country's colonial adventures, but I do think that some of them were more motivated by, as I said, a Christian desire to end certain barbaric practices.If you look at, the I forget what the practice is called, but the practice of people burning their their wives on the husband's funeral pyre in India and the whole slavery, which, yes, Britain was a part of but it's quite clear that, the British Navy was very important, effective in, in, in ending the global slave trade.So I'm very proud of where I come from and I'm proud of my ancestors. I don't deny that They were put that they, there weren't some, as I said, some negative aspects and atrocities, but I just think that again, when it comes to, and I think about this more because I have kids now.So I think about how I want them to feel about the country going forward. This is part of, traveling. You see so many countries where people are so proud of their country. Nigerians were some of the most proud people I think I've ever met, and it's the same in Japan. And I worry the direction our country's going, both the UK and the US, when we were raising a generation of children who are being taught to be embarrassed by where they come from.Leafbox: Going back to oil for a second, Andrew, the colonial legacy is impossible to digest in a short interview, but do you have, what's the general like Pemex or the Venezuelan oil companies or the Russian oil companies? What's your general impression of nationalized oil companies versus the private?Andrew: Yeah. I so I guess my biggest experience is in Azerbaijan, there's a company called Soka which is the national oil company. And of course all these national oil companies, a lot of them have shares in international like private oil companies.So it's not always a clear divide of either one or the other, but I guess I, as someone who really. believes in capitalism. I think that in terms of efficiency and certainly in terms of safety, in terms of environmental compliance, I think that the private oil companies are much more answerable to activism, to just a sense of corporate responsibility than private oil companies.And if you're in somewhere like Russia, like you say, Venezuela and the national oil companies is polluting the water. Well, What are you going to do about compared to a private oil company who has, a much more, it has shareholders and I guess more of a global footprint. But I also come back to the point, as I was saying about localization that these resources are the country's resources and I think it's quite right that companies pay.I wouldn't say prohibitive amounts of tax, but I think it's quite right that companies pay a lot of money in tax when they extract the hydrocarbons, and they have local content. I guess the ideal for me is private, but with a level of public ownership. But not actually running the operations because I think as soon as you take away, as soon as you take away that meritocracy, you end up with health and safety risks, you end up with just waste, and when it comes to something like with the large amounts of money involved That just ends up taking money away from the actual people.I don't think it's, I don't think it's generally a great idea, but I think a sort of public, a bit like you see a lot here in Japan actually, a public private mix, if done properly, is probably the way to go for a lot of utilities. Leafbox: Great. So Andrew, maybe it's time to jump to the oil and energy diverse mix.Tell me about what brings you to Japan. First, you work on nuclear and now wind. Andrew: Yeah. For me, I can't claim any sort of high minded high minded drive to change from one industry to the other. It was purely, I had a mortgage and a new baby and I desperately needed a job. So that was how I made that jump.The one thing I have experienced over the years, it's certainly the place I've worked. It's very, Unless you're in a region that has like a national oil company, it's even then I guess depends who you are. It's very meritocratic, but it's quite cutthroat. So oil companies, service companies, as soon as oil price drops, it's very cyclical.People just get made redundant. People, I saw people at Halliburton had been there for literally 40, 50 years being made redundant just because the share price dropped a few points. I've been made redundant twice myself. And yeah, it's just horrible. And there's nothing you can do about it because it's an economic decision.It's nothing to do with your performance. And that happens to, it's probably very few people on the street that hasn't happened to It's the downside of the high salary really. So coming into wind it was really an opportunity to, as I say, we wanted to live abroad again for a little while.And opportunities to live in Japan don't come by very often. And it's interesting. It's interesting. It's very different. It's interesting from an engineering point of view. It's a lot of heavy lifts. And Japan, I think Japan has a good attitude towards offshore wind, because everything else, Japan has a long term vision.It has a vision of a percentage mix of nuclear fossil fuels, renewables, whereas I feel like I'm fairly against it in my home country, in the UK, because we don't have a long term plan. We've had four prime ministers in the last two years. One of them wanted to build eight nuclear power stations, the next one to start fracking.And then the one now wants to quadruple our offshore wind capacity in eight years, which is impossible. It's quite nonsensical. It's quite short term thinking. I'm not anti wind, I'm not pro oil, I'm not anti or pro any, anything. What I'm pro is a science based, long term, non subsidy, non corruption based market solution.Obviously you've got environmental aspect of climate change, et cetera, which needs to be taken into account. But I found, I find a lot of the attitude towards renewables and towards the energy mix quite histrionic and not really based on facts. Leafbox: Do you ever think about, geopolitics as an engineer in terms of, where these pressures are coming from.Europe particularly seems so against oil and hydrocarbons, but if you do any scientific research, you just, there's the capacity of hydrocarbons to produce energy is just unparalleled in terms of the input to output. And wind is just not a realistic option. Andrew: I think that, I think there's a general I would say it's a mistake, but I think it's done on purpose, but there's a general attitude that seems to be portrayed in the media that you can have one company or one industry is virtuous and everything they do is virtuous and there are no negative connotations or motivations behind what they're doing.And then the other is just all negative. So right now, it seems like oil is completely negative and then offshore wind is completely positive. You look at the motivations behind companies putting in offshore wind turbines or the service companies exactly the same as motivations behind all companies.Neither one is doing them. For anything other than to make money. And I think it's simplistic and a little bit silly to think that the boss of an oil company is some sort of J. R. Ewing, person that likes to run over puppies on the way home and the boss of an electricity company or a turbine installation company or whatever.is some sort of, sandal wearing saint that doesn't care about money. Everyone in pretty much, I would say any corporation, that statistic about men are CEOs, they're psychopaths. All they care about is money. And I think there are a lot of like there's a lot of talk about subsidies.You just touched on it, I think. And people talk about subsidies and oil when they're talking about subsidies and oil, what they're talking about is the The fact that when you drill an oil well, which can be anything between, I don't know, 30 and like upwards of 100 million, you basically get to claim that back off the tax.Now the tax in the UK is, it was about 75 percent on the oil that they extract and profit from the oil they extract. But if you have that say 100 million cost, how many companies can drill three or four wells at 100 That you're going to get anything out of that. Very few companies can afford to take that risk.I don't think it's a bit rich to call that a subsidy when you've got the whole CFD process for offshore wind, which effectively guarantees the strike price of electricity. So you imagine if you had that for oil, you would have, You would have countries buying oil off the oil companies when the price dropped, and they don't have that, they don't have that, that, that mechanism, but you simply wouldn't get offshore winds without a decent strike price, which you've seen recently in the auctions when no one bid on the licenses in the UK, and I think it was the US as well.Leafbox: So in essence you prefer just like a free market, totally. Not a totally free market, but in the sense that a clear transparent market. So if that really incentivized the right incentives, like you're saying in Japan, they have that mix of nuclear and hydrocarbon and wind and solar. And in Japan, I always feel like they're just burning trash.That's their real power generation. Andrew: It's funny that it's such a funny place in so many ways, but you've got this island, which has, a lot of geothermal resources. But in terms of mineral resources, it's not in a great position yet. It manages to be so incredibly self sufficient in terms of industry, in terms of fuel price.Like they, they said to me when I arrived here, Oh God, it's so expensive electricity. It's like about 60 to, to a month for the electricity in your house. And it's a four bed house with five air cons on 24 seven. I'm like, geez, you just see the price UK. You'd be like, 10 times almost. So they managed to make it work, but like everything else here, like I said, it's a long term, long thought process.And Obviously, I guess we haven't really talked about it, and I'm not, I don't feel qualified even to talk about it at all, to be honest with you, but in terms of climate change, I am very much meritocratic and capitalist in that sense that I think the market will identify the most efficient.way of providing energy, but I completely accept that there needs to be a level of environmental regulation because going back to what I said, CEOs, I think of any company would do anything if it made them money. And I've seen, I saw this in Azerbaijan. You go out, you're back, he's an absolutely beautiful city, but if you look back through its history of being part of the Soviet Union, the level of just pollution was unreal and it still suffers from a lot of that, especially out with the main city. So I 100 percent agree with environmental regulations. I think that, I think there's a lot of politics behind climate change. I'm quite skeptical of international NGO organizations, especially with the last few years that we've had.But I think that the yeah, I think that Japan's got it right. I think we need a mix and we need to not. Pretend like we are doing in the UK at the moment that for instance, the electricity price in the UK is doubled since 2019. And it hasn't here in Japan, and there, there tends to be a thought of, well, we just need to do all this because climate change is going to happen.It doesn't matter that, that people are suffering now, I don't think, I think people tend to. tend to maybe forget the, it's like the, the just stop oil extinction rebellion types. It's the world we have is impossible to have without oil. Sure. You can reduce it. It's going to run out eventually one day anyway.So reducing it is not a bad thing, but to pretend that you can just press stop and then you can put in a wind

Patrick continues his dive into Memphis music by discussing a unique 1995 book written by Robert Gordon, “It Came From Memphis.”  Rockin' the Suburbs on Apple Podcasts/iTunes or other podcast platforms, including audioBoom, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart, Stitcher and TuneIn. Or listen at SuburbsPod.com. Please rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts and share it with your friends. Visit our website at SuburbsPod.com Email Jim & Patrick at rock@suburbspod.com Follow us on the Threads, Facebook or Instagram @suburbspod If you're glad or sad or high, call the Suburban Party Line — 612-440-1984. Theme music: "Ascension," originally by Quartjar, covered by Frank Muffin. Visit quartjar.bandcamp.com and frankmuffin.bandcamp.com.

Three themes have dominated big-picture insurance conversations in 2024. The first is inflation and its impact on policy pricing. The second is extreme weather, as the increased frequency and severity of natural catastrophes strain the insurance-claims system along with carriers and reinsurers. And the third is litigation and its companion, “social inflation,” or the impression that insurers are bad corporate actors with deep pockets and must correct societal wrongs via exorbitant legal settlements. On this episode of Insurance Speak, Robert Gordon, senior vice president of the policy, research and international division of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), weighs in on these and other issues impacting insurance affordability and availability

Super-special-secret friend Matt Heller (a.k.a. DJ Snakes) joins Lightnin' Lickers Jay and Deon for an in-depth discussion about what he's been listening to. In true DJ form, Snakes brings four rare/abstract vinyl singles to Electric Kitsch for a conversation about the DIY punk scene of his adolescence, the intersection of skateboarding and hip-hop, dusty independent soul holy grail 45s, proto-drumless rap from Wu's G.O.A.T. (arguably), and an unlikely emcee whose appeal is seemingly without boundaries. As always, an eclectic custom mixtape is curated and included on the back end. Lickers gonna lick. Join the fun! Sonic (non-mix) contributors to the twenty-second bonus episode of Lightnin' Licks Radio podcast include: Townes Van Zandt, Ahmed, Teddy Pendergrass, Thomas Dolby, Prince Paul and De La Soul, Gary Wright, Biggie Smalls, Mtume, Mike Judge's Hank and Bobby Hill, Migos, Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, James Todd Smith, Osonski, Oddisee, Thundercat, Greta Van Fleet, Whitney, Smith Westerns, Fleetwood Mac, Haim, The Rockets, Jimi Hendrix, Tropical Fuck Storm, Bee Gees, Nine Inch Nails, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, LCD Soundsystem, Robert Gordon, Hozier, Mekons, James Brown, Clyde Stubblefield, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, Green River, J.J. Cale, Black Eyed Peas, DJ Snakes, Bob James, Run DMC, Jurassic 5, Ted Nugent, IAM, Black Star, J-Live, Drug Toilet, Take No Prisoners, Slaunchwise, Army of Juan, bev.clone, Mighty Lovers, Eric & the Vikings, Raphael Saadiq, Mayer Hawthorne, Big Tone, Jimmy “Soul” Clark, RZA, True Master, The Delfonics, Madlib, Jay Dilla, Height Keech, Cortex, 3rd Base, Thumbling, Glider, Jesus Jones, Rick Rubin, 2 Much, Rhythm Addicts, Mary Jane Girls, Jennifer Lopez, Boyz II Men, Michael Jackson, Marley Marl, The Emotions, Sean Evans, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Shannon Doherty, Luke Perry, Strictly Butters, and Brass Construction. Jay suggested songs from Cullen Omari, Model/Actriz, The Three Johns, and Majesty Crush. Deon brought Peter Green, Link Wray, Stone Gossard, and LL Cool J to the dining room table. Our SSSF Matt brought in bangers from Smatch, New Holidays, Ghostface, and MF Doom. Bonus #22 mixtape: [side one] (1) strictlybutters' Wake Up intro (2) Smatch – i am nowhere (you are nothing) (3) Link Wray – Morning (4) Model/Acrtiz – Mosquito (5) Ghostface – holla (6) Stone Gossard – Fits (7) The Three Johns – Go Ahead Bikini [side two] (1) New Holidays – Maybe So, Maybe No (2) LL Cool J – Pink Cookies in a Plastic Bag Getting Crushed by Buildings (3) Majesty Crush – No. 1 Fan (4) MF Doom – one beer (5) Cullen Omari – Four Years (6) Peter Green – Hidden Depths (remix) Thank you, Matt, for taking the time to dive deep with the geeks. Follow Snakes on Instagram. Check out Sandbox Automatic for all your physical rap music needs. The full conversation with Snakes will be packaged as a stand-alone bonus episode sometime in the near future. We got into some shit, I'll tell you whhhat.

Segment One:A TASTE OF MONEY, A SCENT OF ORANGE Segment Two: WILLIE NILE “The unofficial poet laureate of New York City.” - Uncut"Better than most performers have to offer by far." -- Rolling Stone“Clash/Social Distortion meets Pete Seeger…a true master songwriter!” – Hits“Willie's so good I can't believe he's not from New Jersey!” – Little Steven“Crossing the power of the Clash with the social consciousness of Woody Guthrie…he's stronger than ever!” – The Morton Report“Willie Nile is a great artist. If there was any justice in this world, I'd be opening up for him instead of him for me.” Lucinda Williams“The epitome of real, true American rock 'n' roll!” – Pop Matters“He's a rocker's rocker, protégé of the famous.” -- USA Today“A man who embodies the true spirit of rock n' roll.” - London Times“RIVETING!...Springsteen, Mellencamp, Van Morrison…Willie Nile has earned his standing in that esteemed company! – BlurtSegment Three:"MY GAL SAL"Paul Dresser's “My Gal Sal” is a song that beautifully captures the essence of love and devotion. Its universal message and enchanting melody continue to resonate with audiences, making it a timeless classic. Whether it reminds you of a loved one or simply brings a smile to your face, this song stands as a testament to the enduring power of music to touch our souls.Also known as "They Call Her Frivolous Sal," this 1905 song by Paul Dresser has the distinction of being the first song ever performed in a motion picture film. This was of course The Jazz Singer which was released October 6, 1927.Dresser died in 1906 so had no idea his work would be so honored. In the film it is sung briefly (and ostensibly) by the teenage Robert Gordon, although it is dubbed by an unknown singer.Since its first publication at New York in 1905, "My Gal Sal" has been republished a number of times including around 1960, and has also been fairly widely recorded. >>In 1942, a musical film based on Paul Dresser's life called My Gal Sal was released. Victor Mature played Dresser.

109 - Kenny Aaronson In episode 109 of “Have Guitar Will Travel”, presented by Vintage Guitar Magazine host, James Patrick Regan speaks with bassist extraordinaire Kenny Aaronson. In their conversation they cover: His current project being the bassist and part of the core band for the “Happy Together” tour. Kenny talks about his time in the band Derringer and the show supporting Led Zeppelin at their last ever show in the U.S. in Oakland 1977. Kenny discusses growing up in Brooklyn, NY and his first professional band “Dust”. They talk about Kenny's love for bass after his start on his older brother's drum set. They discuss a bunch of the artists Kenny has played with… Hall and Oates, Billy Squire, Lesley West, Joan Jett, Brian Setzer, Mick Taylor, Dave Edmonds, Robert Gordon to name a few. They discuss Kenny's love for steel guitar… and making mid century modern tiki music. . You can find out more about Kenny at his website: https://www.kennyaaronson.com . . Please subscribe, like, comment, share and review this podcast! . #VintageGuitarmagazine #KennyAaronson #HappyTogetherTour #Derringer #VintageGuitar #guitar #Guitar #Yardbirds #NewYorkDolls #bassguitar #Bass #theDeadlies #guitarfinds #haveguitarwilltravelpodcast #guitarcollector #Travelwithguitars #haveguitarwilltravel #hgwt #HGWT #Tiki #MidCenturyModern . . Please like, comment, and share this podcast! Download Link

Exploring both his life and legacy, the first full biography of William Sharman Crawford, the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster politics between the early 1830s and the 1850s. This biography places the life and ideas of William Sharman Crawford in the context of the development of radical liberalism in Ulster province over a more extended period, from his father's involvement in the Volunteers in the era of the American and French revolutions, through William's own leadership in Irish and British radical reform movements, including the Repeal Association, Chartism, and the Tenant League. It explores his attempts to reconcile Irish patriotism with the existence of the Union through the concept of "federalism," his efforts to act as an "ideal landlord" in the face of agrarian unrest and famine, and his deep commitment to attaining land and welfare reforms that he believed would empower both tenant farmers and the laboring poor. William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (U College Dublin Press, 2023) traces the legacy of his politics through the political careers of his children James in Gladstonian liberalism and Mabel in the women's suffrage movement, both of whom sought, in common with Presbyterian allies such as James McKnight, to carry his ideas into the later nineteenth century. It concludes with the collapse of the family's radical tradition in the following generation, as his grandson Robert Gordon came to reject liberal unionism and take an active role in the Ulster Unionist movement from the 1890s. Through an assessment of the Sharman Crawford family over four generations, William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism explores the resilience of the Ulster Protestant radical tradition in the wake of the setbacks of 1798, its strengths and weaknesses, and its relations with Irish Catholic nationalism, British radicalism, the conservative landed, and Orange traditions within Ulster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Exploring both his life and legacy, the first full biography of William Sharman Crawford, the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster politics between the early 1830s and the 1850s. This biography places the life and ideas of William Sharman Crawford in the context of the development of radical liberalism in Ulster province over a more extended period, from his father's involvement in the Volunteers in the era of the American and French revolutions, through William's own leadership in Irish and British radical reform movements, including the Repeal Association, Chartism, and the Tenant League. It explores his attempts to reconcile Irish patriotism with the existence of the Union through the concept of "federalism," his efforts to act as an "ideal landlord" in the face of agrarian unrest and famine, and his deep commitment to attaining land and welfare reforms that he believed would empower both tenant farmers and the laboring poor. William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (U College Dublin Press, 2023) traces the legacy of his politics through the political careers of his children James in Gladstonian liberalism and Mabel in the women's suffrage movement, both of whom sought, in common with Presbyterian allies such as James McKnight, to carry his ideas into the later nineteenth century. It concludes with the collapse of the family's radical tradition in the following generation, as his grandson Robert Gordon came to reject liberal unionism and take an active role in the Ulster Unionist movement from the 1890s. Through an assessment of the Sharman Crawford family over four generations, William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism explores the resilience of the Ulster Protestant radical tradition in the wake of the setbacks of 1798, its strengths and weaknesses, and its relations with Irish Catholic nationalism, British radicalism, the conservative landed, and Orange traditions within Ulster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Exploring both his life and legacy, the first full biography of William Sharman Crawford, the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster politics between the early 1830s and the 1850s. This biography places the life and ideas of William Sharman Crawford in the context of the development of radical liberalism in Ulster province over a more extended period, from his father's involvement in the Volunteers in the era of the American and French revolutions, through William's own leadership in Irish and British radical reform movements, including the Repeal Association, Chartism, and the Tenant League. It explores his attempts to reconcile Irish patriotism with the existence of the Union through the concept of "federalism," his efforts to act as an "ideal landlord" in the face of agrarian unrest and famine, and his deep commitment to attaining land and welfare reforms that he believed would empower both tenant farmers and the laboring poor. William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (U College Dublin Press, 2023) traces the legacy of his politics through the political careers of his children James in Gladstonian liberalism and Mabel in the women's suffrage movement, both of whom sought, in common with Presbyterian allies such as James McKnight, to carry his ideas into the later nineteenth century. It concludes with the collapse of the family's radical tradition in the following generation, as his grandson Robert Gordon came to reject liberal unionism and take an active role in the Ulster Unionist movement from the 1890s. Through an assessment of the Sharman Crawford family over four generations, William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism explores the resilience of the Ulster Protestant radical tradition in the wake of the setbacks of 1798, its strengths and weaknesses, and its relations with Irish Catholic nationalism, British radicalism, the conservative landed, and Orange traditions within Ulster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Exploring both his life and legacy, the first full biography of William Sharman Crawford, the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster politics between the early 1830s and the 1850s. This biography places the life and ideas of William Sharman Crawford in the context of the development of radical liberalism in Ulster province over a more extended period, from his father's involvement in the Volunteers in the era of the American and French revolutions, through William's own leadership in Irish and British radical reform movements, including the Repeal Association, Chartism, and the Tenant League. It explores his attempts to reconcile Irish patriotism with the existence of the Union through the concept of "federalism," his efforts to act as an "ideal landlord" in the face of agrarian unrest and famine, and his deep commitment to attaining land and welfare reforms that he believed would empower both tenant farmers and the laboring poor. William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (U College Dublin Press, 2023) traces the legacy of his politics through the political careers of his children James in Gladstonian liberalism and Mabel in the women's suffrage movement, both of whom sought, in common with Presbyterian allies such as James McKnight, to carry his ideas into the later nineteenth century. It concludes with the collapse of the family's radical tradition in the following generation, as his grandson Robert Gordon came to reject liberal unionism and take an active role in the Ulster Unionist movement from the 1890s. Through an assessment of the Sharman Crawford family over four generations, William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism explores the resilience of the Ulster Protestant radical tradition in the wake of the setbacks of 1798, its strengths and weaknesses, and its relations with Irish Catholic nationalism, British radicalism, the conservative landed, and Orange traditions within Ulster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exploring both his life and legacy, the first full biography of William Sharman Crawford, the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster politics between the early 1830s and the 1850s. This biography places the life and ideas of William Sharman Crawford in the context of the development of radical liberalism in Ulster province over a more extended period, from his father's involvement in the Volunteers in the era of the American and French revolutions, through William's own leadership in Irish and British radical reform movements, including the Repeal Association, Chartism, and the Tenant League. It explores his attempts to reconcile Irish patriotism with the existence of the Union through the concept of "federalism," his efforts to act as an "ideal landlord" in the face of agrarian unrest and famine, and his deep commitment to attaining land and welfare reforms that he believed would empower both tenant farmers and the laboring poor. William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (U College Dublin Press, 2023) traces the legacy of his politics through the political careers of his children James in Gladstonian liberalism and Mabel in the women's suffrage movement, both of whom sought, in common with Presbyterian allies such as James McKnight, to carry his ideas into the later nineteenth century. It concludes with the collapse of the family's radical tradition in the following generation, as his grandson Robert Gordon came to reject liberal unionism and take an active role in the Ulster Unionist movement from the 1890s. Through an assessment of the Sharman Crawford family over four generations, William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism explores the resilience of the Ulster Protestant radical tradition in the wake of the setbacks of 1798, its strengths and weaknesses, and its relations with Irish Catholic nationalism, British radicalism, the conservative landed, and Orange traditions within Ulster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Exploring both his life and legacy, the first full biography of William Sharman Crawford, the leading agrarian and democratic radical active in Ulster politics between the early 1830s and the 1850s. This biography places the life and ideas of William Sharman Crawford in the context of the development of radical liberalism in Ulster province over a more extended period, from his father's involvement in the Volunteers in the era of the American and French revolutions, through William's own leadership in Irish and British radical reform movements, including the Repeal Association, Chartism, and the Tenant League. It explores his attempts to reconcile Irish patriotism with the existence of the Union through the concept of "federalism," his efforts to act as an "ideal landlord" in the face of agrarian unrest and famine, and his deep commitment to attaining land and welfare reforms that he believed would empower both tenant farmers and the laboring poor. William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism (U College Dublin Press, 2023) traces the legacy of his politics through the political careers of his children James in Gladstonian liberalism and Mabel in the women's suffrage movement, both of whom sought, in common with Presbyterian allies such as James McKnight, to carry his ideas into the later nineteenth century. It concludes with the collapse of the family's radical tradition in the following generation, as his grandson Robert Gordon came to reject liberal unionism and take an active role in the Ulster Unionist movement from the 1890s. Through an assessment of the Sharman Crawford family over four generations, William Sharman Crawford and Ulster Radicalism explores the resilience of the Ulster Protestant radical tradition in the wake of the setbacks of 1798, its strengths and weaknesses, and its relations with Irish Catholic nationalism, British radicalism, the conservative landed, and Orange traditions within Ulster. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

As I often remind subscribers to Faster, Please!, predictions are hard, especially about the future. The economic boom of the 1990s came as a surprise to most economists. Equally surprising was that it ended so soon. Neither of these events caught Ed Yardeni off-guard. Some forecasters, Yardeni included, anticipated a new Roaring '20s for this century… only to be interrupted by the pandemic. But is it too late for this prediction to become a reality? According to Yardeni, not at all.Ed Yardeni is president of Yardeni Research, and he previously served as chief investment strategist at a number of investment companies, including Deutche Bank.  He has additionally held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and US Treasury Department. For more economic insights and investment guidance, visit yardeni.com.In This Episode* The '90s Internet boom (1:25)* The Digital Revolution (5:01)* The new Roaring '20s (9:00)* A cautious Federal Reserve (14:24)* Speedbumps to progress (18:18)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversationThe '90s Internet boom (1:25)Pethokoukis: Statistically speaking, the PC Internet boom that you first started writing about back in the early '90s ended in 2004, 2005. How surprising was that to economists, investors, policy makers? I, to this day, have a report, a 2000 report, from Lehman Brothers that predicted, as far as the eye could see, we would have rapid growth, rapid productivity growth for at least another decade. Now, of course, Lehman didn't make it another decade. Was that a surprise to people that we didn't have an endless productivity boom coming out of the '90s?Yardeni: I think it definitely was a surprise. I mean, it was surprising both ways. Not too many people expected to see a productivity boom in the second half of the 1990s, which is what we had. I did, as an economist on Wall Street. More importantly, Alan Greenspan was a big promoter of the idea that the technology revolution would in fact lead to better productivity growth and that that might mean better economic growth and lower inflation. And it didn't look that way for a while; then suddenly the Bureau of Economic Analysis went back and revised the data for the late 1990s and, lo and behold, it turned out that there was a productivity boom. And then it all kind of fizzled out, and it raises the question, why did that happen? Why was it such a short lived productivity boom? And the answer is—well, let me give you a personal anecdote.I worked at Deutsche Bank in New York in the late 1990s, and I had to be very careful walking down the corridors of Deutsche Bank in midtown Manhattan not to trip over Dell boxes. Everybody was getting a Dell box, everybody was getting the Dell boxes loaded up with the Windows Office. And when you think back on what that was able to do in terms of productivity, if you had a lot of secretaries on Selectric typewriters, Word could obviously increase productivity. If you had a lot of bookkeepers doing spreadsheets, Excel could obviously increase productivity. But other than that, there wasn't really that much productivity to be had from the technology at the time. So again, where did that productivity boom come from? It couldn't have been just secretaries and bookkeepers. Now the answer is that the boxes themselves were measured as output, and so output per man hour increased dramatically. It doesn't take that many workers to produce Dell boxes and Windows Office and Windows software. So as a result of that, we had this big boom in the technology output that created its own productivity boom, but it didn't really have the widespread application to all sorts of business model the way today's evolution of the technology boom is, in fact, capable of doing.What you've just described, I think, is the explanation by, for instance, Robert Gordon, Northwestern University, that we saw a revolution, but it was a narrow revolution.It was the beginning! It was the beginning of a revolution. It was the Technology Revolution. It started in the 1990s and it's evolved, it's not over, it's ongoing. I think a big development in that revolution was the cloud. What the cloud allowed you to do was really increase productivity in technology itself, because you didn't need to have several hundred people in the IT department. Now, with the cloud, one person can upgrade the software on hundreds of computers, and now we're renting software so that it automatically upgrades, so that's been a big contribution to productivity.The Digital Revolution (5:01)So perhaps I spoke too soon. I talked about that boom—that '90s boom—ending. Perhaps I should have said it was more of a pause, because it seems what we're seeing now, as you've described it, is a new phase of the Digital Revolution—perhaps a broader phase—and, to be clear, if I understand what you've been speaking about and writing about, this isn't an AI story, this predates what we're seeing in the data now, it predates ChatGPT, when do you date this new phase beginning—and you mentioned one catalyst perhaps being the cloud, so—when did it begin and, again, what are the data markers that you've been looking at?I don't remember the exact date, but I think it was 2011 where my little investment advisory got ourselves on the Amazon cloud, and that's been a tremendous source of productivity for us, it saves us a lot of money. We used to have a couple of servers on a server farm in the old days, and every now and then it would go down and we'd have to reach somebody on the server farm and say, “Would you mind turning it on and off?” Remember the word “reboot?” I don't remember the word “reboot” being used in quite some time. Amazon's never gone down, as far as I can recall. I think they've always had their systems in Virginia, and they had a backup somewhere overseas, but it's always worked quite well for us.But now we're finding with some of the other software that's available now, we can actually cut back on our Amazon costs and use some of these other technologies. There's lots of technologies that are very user-friendly, very powerful, and they apply themselves to all sorts of different businesses, and, as you said, it's not just AI. I think the cloud—let's put it around 2011 or so—was a huge development because it did allow companies to do information processing in a much more efficient way, and the software gets automatically updated, and with what it used to take hundreds of people in an IT department to do, now you can do it with just one, which is what we, in fact, have, just one person doing it all for us. But I would say that's as good a point as any. But along the way here, what's really changed is the power of the software that's available, and how cheap it is, and how you can rent it now instead of having to own it.That's a fantastic example, and, of course, we want to see these sort of examples at some point reflected in the data. And going through some of your writings, one period that you were very focused on was, we may have seen a bottom, maybe at the end of 2015, before the pandemic, where we saw the slowest, I think 20-quarter average… annual average growth rate of productivity.0.5 annual rate.But by 2019, leading into the pandemic, it tripled. Is the story of that tripling, is it the cloud? And that certainly has to be one reason why you, among other people, thought that we might see a new Roaring '20s, right into the teeth of the pandemic, unfortunately.Well, it's not so unfortunate, I mean, clearly nobody saw the pandemic coming, but we weathered the storm very, very well, and I don't think we can come to any conclusion about productivity during the pandemic, it was all over the place. At first, when we were on lockdown, it actually soared because we were still producing a lot with fewer workers, and then it took a dive, but we're now back up to two percent. We had a really, really good year last year in productivity. The final three quarters of last year, we saw above-trend growth in productivity. And so we're already now back up to two percent, which, again, compared to 0.5, is certainly moving in the right direction, and I don't see any particular reason why that number couldn't go to three-and-a-half, four-and-a-half percent per year kind of growth—which sounds delusional unless you look back at the chart of productivity and see that that's actually what productivity booms do: They get up to something like three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half percent growth, not just on a one-quarter basis, but on a 20-quarter trailing basis at an annual rate.The new Roaring '20s (9:00)This forecast predates the word “generative AI,” predates ChatGPT, and, in fact, if I understand your view, it's even broader than information technology. So tell me a bit about your broader Roaring '20s thesis and the technological underpinnings of that.One of the developments we've seen here, which has been somewhat disconcerting, is the challenge to globalization. I'm a big believer in free trade, and the free trade creates more economic growth, but, on the other hand, we have to be realistic and realize that China hasn't been playing by the rules of the game. And so now, as a result, we're seeing a lot of production moving out of China to other countries, and we're seeing a lot of on-shoring in the United States, so we're building state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that are full of robots and automation that I think are going to bring manufacturing productivity back quite significantly.Everybody seems to be of the opinion that the reason productivity is weak is because of services. It's actually manufacturing. What happened is, when China joined the World Trade Organization back at the end of 2001—December 11th, 2001, to be exact—manufacturers said hasta la vista to the United States, and we've had absolutely no increase in industrial production capacity since that time, since 2001. And so companies basically gave up on trying to do anything, either expand capacity or improve productivity of manufacturing here, when they could do it so much more cheaply over in China.I think what's really the most important thing that's changed here is, demographically, we've run out of workers. Certainly even in China, we don't have a growth in the working-age population. We don't have a growth in the working-age population here. And when it comes to skilled labor, that's even more the case, so there's tremendous incentive and pressure on companies to figure out, well, how do we deal with an environment where our business is pretty good, but we can't find the workers to meet all the demand? And the answer has to be productivity. Technology is part of the solution. Managing for productivity is another part of the solution. Giving workers more skills to be more productive is a very good use of money, and it makes workers sticky, it makes them want to stay with you because you're going to have to pay them more because they're more knowledgeable, and you want to pay them more because you want to keep them.I think a big part of the productivity story really has to do with the demographic story. China, of course, accelerated all that with the One Child Policy that, as a result, I kind of view China as the world's largest nursing home. They just don't have the workforce that they used to have. Japan doesn't have the workforce. Korea, Taiwan, all these countries… If you want to find cheap, young labor, it's still in Africa and in India, but there are all sorts of issues with how you do business in these countries. It's not that easy. It's not as simple as just saying, “Well, let's just go there.” And so I think we are seeing a tremendous push to increase productivity to deal with the worldwide labor shortage.We have three really good quarters of productivity growth and, as you mentioned, economists are always very cautious about those productivity numbers because of revisions, they're volatile. But if this is something real and sustainable, it should also reflect in other parts of the economy. We should see good capital investment numbers for here on out if this is a real thing.I think not only capital investment, but also real wages. Productivity is fairy dust. I mean it's a win-win-win situation. With better-than-expected productivity, you get better-than-expected, real GDP, you get lower-than-expected unit labor costs, which, by the way, unit labor costs, which reflect hourly wages offset by productivity, they're under two percent—or they're around two percent, I should say more accurately—and that's highly correlated with the CPI, so the underlying inflation rate has already come down to where the Fed wants it to be. This is not a forecast, this is where we are right now with unit labor costs. So there's a very strong correlation between productivity growth and the growth of inflation-adjusted compensation. So you can take average hourly earnings, you can take hourly compensation…There are a bunch of measures of wages, and divide them by the consumption deflator, and you'll see on a year-over-year basis that the correlation is extremely high. And, theoretically—it's the only thing I learned when I went to college in economics that ever made any sense to me, and that is—people in a competitive marketplace—it doesn't have to be perfectly competitive, but in a relatively competitive marketplace—people get paid their real wage. The productivity the workers have, they get paid in their real wages, and we've seen, for all the talk about how “standards of living have stagnated for decades,” if you look at average hourly earnings divided by the consumption deflator, it's been going up 1.4 percent since 1995. That's a doubling of the standard of living every 40 years. That's pretty good progress. And if productivity grows faster than that, you'll get even a better increase in real wages.If we don't have workers, if there's a shortage of workers—though, obviously, immigration puts a whole different spin on these things—but for what we know now in terms of the workers that are available that are allowed to work, they are getting paid higher real wages. I know that prices have gone up, but people sometimes forget that wages have also gone up quite a bit. But again, it's fairy dust: You get better real growth, you get lower inflation, you get real wages going up, and you get better profit margins. Everybody wins.A cautious Federal Reserve (14:24)In the '90s, we had a Fed chairman who was super cautious about assuming a productivity boom, but eventually saw the reality of it and acted accordingly. It seems to me that we have a very similar such situation where we have a Federal Reserve chairman who is certainly aware of these numbers, but seems to me, at this point, certainly reluctant to make decisions based on those numbers, but you would expect that to change.Yeah, well, I mean if you just look at the summary of economic projections that the Federal Open Market Committee… that comes out on a quarterly basis reflecting the consensus of Fed Chair Powell's committee that determines monetary policy, they're looking for real GDP growth of less than two percent per year for the next couple of years, and they're obviously not anticipating any improvement in productivity. So I think you're right, I think Fed Chair Powell is very much aware that productivity can change everything; and, in fact, he's talked about productivity, he knows the equation. He says, “Look, it's okay to have wages growing three percent if inflation's two percent.” Then he implied, therefore, that productivity is growing one percent. So he's basically in the one percent camp, recognizing that, if productivity is more than that, then four percent wage growth is perfectly fine and acceptable and non-inflationary. But at this point he's, in terms of his pronouncements, he's sticking to the kind of standard line of economists, which is, maybe we'll get one percent, and if we get one percent and the Fed gets inflation down, let's say to only two-and-a-half percent, then wages can grow three-and-a-half percent, and right now wages are growing at a little bit above. I think we're growing more like four percent, so the wage numbers aren't there yet, but they could be the right numbers if, in fact, productivity is making a comeback.If we hit productivity gains of the sort you've talked about—three percent, four percent by the end of the decade—that is a radically different-looking economy than what the Fed, or the CBO, or even a lot of Wall Street firms are talking about. So it's not just this statistic will be different; we're looking at really something very different. I would assume a much higher stock market; I'm not sure what interest rates look like, but what does that world look like in 2030?These are all good questions, they're the ones I'm grappling with. I mean, should interest rates be lower or should they be higher? It's the so-called real interest rates, so if the economy can live with a Fed funds rate of, let's say five and a half percent—five and a quarter, five and a half percent, which is what it is now—and the bond yield at four and a half percent and the economy is doing perfectly fine and inflation's coming down, and it's all because productivity is making comeback, then those rates are fine. They're doing their job, they're allocating capital in a reasonable fashion, and capital is going to get allocated to where capital should go. You mentioned before that, in order to increase productivity, we are going to need more capital investments.Here the Fed has raised interest rates dramatically, and most of the economists said, “Oh, that's going to lead to a big drop in capital,” because capital spending is dependent on interest rates, and that hasn't happened at all, really, because the technology capital spending—which now, in current dollars, technology capital spending accounts for about 50 percent of capital spending in nominal terms. You can't do it in real terms because there's an indexing problem. But in nominal terms, half of capital spending is technology. And by the way, that's an understatement because that's information technology, hardware, it's software and R&D. It doesn't even include industrial machinery, which is mostly technology, hardware and software these days. And even the trucking industry, the truck is sort of the device, and then there's a software that runs the device logistics. There's so many areas of the economy that have become very high-tech that people still think of as a low-tech industry.Speedbumps to progress (18:18)If this doesn't happen. Well, I suppose one thing we could say may have happened is that we've really overestimated these technologies and they're not as transformative. But let me give you two other things that people might point to as being—and you've written a bit about these—that could be speed bumps or barriers. One: debt, possible debt crisis. And two: this energy revolution, climate change transition, which we really have a lot of government involvement and a lot of government making decisions about allocating resources. So what is the risk that those two things could be a slow things down, speed bump, or what have you?There's three issues that you're raising. One is sort of the private sector issue of whether a lot of this artificial intelligence and technology stuff is hype, and it's not going to have the impact on productivity. The other one, as you mentioned, is the two government issues, government's meddling in the climate change policies, and then the government having this irresponsible fiscal excesses.With regards to artificial intelligence, even though I should be a cheerleader on this, because I should say, “See, I told you so…” I have been telling people I told you so because I said, I'll tell you when the stock market started to discount the Roaring '20s was November 30th, 2022 when Open AI introduced ChatGPT, and that's when these AI stocks went crazy. A week later I signed up for the $20 a month version of ChatGPT, figuring, “This is great! I'm not going to have to work anymore. This is going to do all my writing for me. I'll just ask it the question and say, ‘What do you think we should be writing about this? Go ahead and write about it.'” Well, it took me more time to correct all the errors for what it produced than it would've taken me just to write the damn thing.So I kind of cooled off to chat GPT, and I come to the conclusion that, from what I see right now in terms of what is available to the public and what's tied to the internet, it's really autofill on speed and the steroids. You know when you type Word and sometimes it guesses what you're going to say next? That's what this thing does at the speed of light. But, you know, “haste makes waste,” as Benjamin Franklin used to say, and it makes a lot of mistakes. And, by the way, garbage in, garbage out. It could create even more garbage on the internet because I've seen situations where it starts quoting its own sources that would never have existed in the first place. So there's some really funky stuff when you have it in the public domain.But I think that when you have it sort of segmented off and it only has the data that you need for your specific industry, and it's not polluted by other the open source ability to take any data, I think it may very well work very well. But it's basically just a really fast, lightning-speed calculations. So I think it has lots of potential in that regard, but I think there is a certain amount of hype. But look, so much money is being spent in this area. I can't believe it's all going to go for naught. I mean, we saw a lot of money spent in the late 1990s on internet and dotcoms and all that. The internet's still here, but the dotcoms are gone.With regards to the government policies, I have this very simplistic view that it's amazing how well this country has done despite Washington. Washington just keeps meddling and meddling, it just keeps picking our pockets, keeps interfering, comes up with industrial policies that, to a large extent, don't work. And yet, the economy continues to do well because working stiffs like you and me and people listening in, that's what we do for a living: we work. We don't have time for politics. So the politicians have plenty of time to figure out how to pick our pockets. Well, we have to just figure out, “Okay, given their meddling, how do we make our businesses better, notwithstanding these challenges.” Maybe it's really more my hope that we somehow in the private sector figure out how to keep doing what we're doing so well, including increasing productivity, in the face of the challenges that the government poses with its policies.But then, if we are successful in the private sector at creating good productivity growth that gives you better real GDP growth, that real growth is one way to reduce the debt burden. It doesn't make it go away and it would be a lot better if we didn't have it, but some of these projections of how this debt is going to eat us all up may be too pessimistic about their assumptions for economic growth. But look… I guess I had a happy childhood, so I tend to be an optimist, but I can't say anything good at all about this deficit problem. And we did get a little glimpse in August, September, October, of what happens when the bond market starts to worry about something like supply. It worried about it for three months, and then lower inflation and less supply of long-term bonds helped to rally the bond market. But here we are back at four and a half percent, and if we do have some more fears about inflation coming back, then we could very well have a debt crisis more imminently. People like Ray Dalio has been saying that we're under verge of getting it. I think it's an issue, but I don't think it's an issue that's going to be calamitous at this time.The problems people talk about, you have the skepticism about free enterprise, or the skepticism about trade, and immigration. I would like to see what this country looks like in 2030 with the economic scenario you've just outlined: Strong real wage growth. Maybe it's too simplistic, but I think people being able to see in their everyday lives, big gains year after year, I think the national mood would be considerably different.Well, I think, even now, if you look at real consumption per household, it's $128,000, it's at an all-time record high. And yeah, I guess the rich might be gluttons and might eat more than the rest of us, and maybe they have bigger and more houses and cars, but there just aren't enough of them to really explain how it could possibly be that real consumption per household is at an all-time record high. And I know that's materialistic, but I can't think of a better way to measure the standard of living than looking at real consumption per household: All-time record high.Faster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Micro Reads▶ Business/ EconomicsMeta, in Its Biggest A.I. Push, Places Smart Assistants Across its Apps - NYTGoogle streamlines structure to speed up AI efforts - FTTesla's Layoffs Won't Solve Its Growing Pains - Wired▶ PolicyPut Growth Back on the Political Agenda - WSJRegulate AI? How US, EU and China Are Going About It - BbergThree ways the US could help universities compete with tech companies on AI innovation - MIT▶ AI/DigitalThe AI race is generating a dual reality - FTSearching for the Next Big AI Breakthrough at the TED Conference - BbergThese photos show AI used to reinterpret centuries-old graffiti - NSEnvironmental Damage Could Cost You a Fifth of Your Income Over the Next 25 Years - WiredAI now surpasses humans in almost all performance benchmarks - New Atlas▶ Biotech/HealthA new understanding of tinnitus and deafness could help reverse both - New ScientistBeyond Neuralink: Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces - MIT▶ RoboticsHello, Electric Atlas: Boston Dynamics introduces a fully electric humanoid robot that “exceeds human performance” - IEEE Spectrum▶ Space/TransportationNASA may alter Artemis III to have Starship and Orion dock in low-Earth orbit - Ars▶ Up Wing/Down WingTechnological risks are not the end of the world - Science▶ Substacks/NewslettersFive things to be optimistic about in America today - NoahpinionWho Governs the Internet? - HyperdimensionalMeta is Surprisingly Relevant in Generative AI - AI SupremacyLarry Summers isn't worried about secular stagnation anymore - Slow BoringFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. 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Robert Gordon of American Property Casualty Insurance Association joins the Arch MI PolicyCast to discuss the impact of climate change on homeowner's insurance and how insurers are responding by adopting new risk-analysis measures.

Hi Metalll Hedz..Weer back with some more ROKKKKKK  IN' songz...Weer doing Rockkkin' covers.Songz from: J.J. Cale / Styx / Bauhaus and Robert Gordon and more...Intro: Xanadu-Rush1. Ziggy Stardust-Bauhaus2. Cocain-J.J. Cale3. Loving You Is Sweeter-The Tremolos4. Summer In The City-Styx5. Let The Good Times Roll-The Del Counts6. Shape Of Things To Come-Glad7. I Was Mad To Love Her-The Beach Boys8. Rock & Roll-Blue Suede 9. Good Loving-The Dave Clark 510. Lies-Lulu11. Lay Lady Lay-The Everly Brothers12. My Baby Left Me-Loggins & Messina13. Life In The Fast Lane-Studio '7814. Bad Side Of The Moon-Toe Fat15. Lonesome Train-Robert Gordon16. Piece Of My Heart-Dusty Springfield 17. It's Love baby-Jackie DeShannon18. Summertime-Ricky NelsonOutro: Nightingales & Bombers-Manfred Mann

"Galaxy Quest," a film that transcends the traditional boundaries of sci-fi comedy, cleverly satirises the tropes of classic science fiction television series while simultaneously paying heartfelt homage to them. Directed by Dean Parisot and released in 1999, the movie stars an ensemble cast including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell. It's a film that not only fans of sci-fi can appreciate but also offers plenty of laughs, excitement, and emotional depth for a broader audience.The premise of "Galaxy Quest" is both a parody and a tribute to the cult phenomenon of TV shows like "Star Trek" and their fervent fan bases. The story follows the washed-up cast of the fictional '80s television series "Galaxy Quest," who, decades after the show's cancellation, make their living through re-runs and sci-fi conventions. The twist comes when they are mistaken for real space heroes by an alien race, the Thermians, who have modelled their entire society on the "Galaxy Quest" TV series, believing the episodes to be historical documents.Tim Allen's portrayal of Jason Nesmith, who played the show's commander, Peter Quincy Taggart, is a standout. Allen captures the bravado and the vulnerability of a man struggling to reconcile his past glory with his present reality. Sigourney Weaver, as Gwen DeMarco, provides not only comic relief but also a strong and savvy presence, challenging the typical damsel-in-distress trope often seen in sci-fi. Alan Rickman, in the role of Alexander Dane, a classically trained actor who resents his typecasting as the alien Dr. Lazarus, delivers his lines with a delicious mix of disdain and despair, providing one of the film's most heartfelt performances.The brilliance of "Galaxy Quest" lies in its ability to poke fun at the clichés of the genre while also respecting the source material. The film cleverly uses the conventions of science fiction—such as teleportation, space battles, and alien encounters—to both parody and celebrate the genre. The Thermians, with their octopus-like true forms hidden beneath human exteriors, symbolise the sometimes awkward but genuine passion of the sci-fi fandom. Their naivety and earnestness in seeking the help of the "Galaxy Quest" crew to save their civilization from the malevolent warlord Sarris (played menacingly by Robin Sachs) add to the film's charm and humour.One of the movie's most significant achievements is its commentary on the nature of fandom and celebrity. "Galaxy Quest" depicts the actors' initial disdain for the conventions and the fans, seeing them as reminders of their failed careers. However, as the story progresses, they come to appreciate the impact their roles have had on their fans' lives, especially the Thermians. This evolution mirrors the journey many actors associated with typecast roles undergo, eventually embracing the love and adoration of the fan community.The screenplay, written by David Howard and Robert Gordon, balances the comedic and dramatic elements seamlessly, creating a narrative that is engaging and emotionally resonant. The dialogue is sharp, filled with memorable lines that have become quotable among fans. The visual effects, while not groundbreaking, effectively serve the story, adding to the film's charm rather than distracting from it."Galaxy Quest" also explores themes of identity, redemption, and the power of belief. Each character undergoes a personal journey, discovering their strength and value beyond their typecast roles. The film's climax, involving a "Galaxy Quest" convention, underscores the idea that belief in oneself and in others can lead to real-world heroism, a message that resonates well beyond the confines of the story.In retrospect, "Galaxy Quest" has grown from a cult classic into a beloved gem, appreciated for its witty satire, emotional depth, and loving tribute to the sci-fi genre and its fans. The film's enduring popularity is a testament to its quality, humor, and the universal appeal of its underlying themes. It serves as a reminder that, sometimes, to find our true selves, we need to embrace the roles we've been given, no matter how alien they may seem.In conclusion, "Galaxy Quest" stands as a pinnacle of sci-fi comedy, expertly blending satire, heart, and adventure. Its clever script, combined with strong performances from the cast, makes it a standout film that continues to entertain and inspire. Whether you're a die-hard sci-fi aficionado or simply in search of a film that offers laughs and a warm heart, "Galaxy Quest" is a journey worth taking. Its message of unity, understanding, and the transformative power of believing in one's self and others is as relevant today as it was at the time of its release. Please follow the Podcast and join our community at https://linktr.ee/borntowatchpodcast If you are looking to start a podcast and want a host or get guests to pipe in remotely, look no further than Riverside.fmClick the link below https://riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_1&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=matthew

Rob Stoner is an All-Star musician who played on Don McLean's mega-hit “American Pie”, one of the most influential songs of the rock era. He also toured with Bob Dylan on his Rolling Thunder Review. He's worked with a Who's Who of artists including Chuck Berry, Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana, Robert Gordon and Link Wray.My featured song is “I'm Falling Off Of The World” from the album East Side Sessions by my band Project Grand Slam. Spotify link. ---------------------------------------------The Follow Your Dream Podcast:Top 1% of all podcasts with Listeners in 200 countries!For more information and other episodes of the podcast click here. To subscribe to the podcast click here.To subscribe to our weekly Follow Your Dream Podcast email click here.To Rate and Review the podcast click here.“Dream With Robert”. Click here.—----------------------------------------“MILES BEHIND”, Robert's first album, was recorded in 1994 but was “lost” for the last 30 years. It's now been released for streaming. Featuring Randy Brecker (Blood Sweat & Tears), Anton Fig (The David Letterman Show), Al Foster (Miles Davis), Tim Ries (The Rolling Stones), Jon Lucien and many more. Called “Hip, Tight and Edgy!” Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------‘THE SINGLES PROJECT” is Robert's new EP, featuring five of his new songs. The songs speak to the ups and downs of life. From the blissful, joyous “Saturday Morning” to the darker commentary of “Like Never Before” and “The Ship”. “This is Robert at his most vulnerable” (Pop Icon Magazine)Reviews: “Amazing!” (Top Buzz Magazine)“Magical…A Sonic Tour De Force!” (IndiePulse Music)“Fabulously Enticing!” (Pop Icon Magazine)“A Home Run!” (Hollywood Digest) Click here for all links.—--------------------------------------“IT'S ALIVE!” is Robert's latest Project Grand Slam album. Featuring 13 of the band's Greatest Hits performed “live” at festivals in Pennsylvania and Serbia.Reviews:"An instant classic!" (Melody Maker)"Amazing record...Another win for the one and only Robert Miller!" (Hollywood Digest)"Close to perfect!" (Pop Icon)"A Masterpiece!" (Big Celebrity Buzz)"Sterling effort!" (Indie Pulse)"Another fusion wonder for Project Grand Slam!" (MobYorkCity)Click here for all links.Click here for song videos—-----------------------------------------Audio production:Jimmy RavenscroftKymera Films Connect with Rob:www.robstoner.com Connect with the Follow Your Dream Podcast:Website - www.followyourdreampodcast.comEmail Robert - robert@followyourdreampodcast.com Follow Robert's band, Project Grand Slam, and his music:Website - www.projectgrandslam.comYouTubeSpotify MusicApple MusicEmail - pgs@projectgrandslam.com

Rob Stoner has an amazing  life making music.  I met Rob around 2010 when we both recorded tracks on a Robert Gordon record produced by Quention Jones.  I found him to be a a genuinely good dude and super bassist. I found out that session that he played bass on Don McLean's hit American Pie but he also sings back up with the track. He was the band leader of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. Which was a  stellar band the included Rob, Nick Ronson. Howie Wyeth,Scarlet Rivera.   

Jonathan breaks down the 1999 Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest, directed by Dean Parisot and written by David Howard and Robert Gordon. It's a clever take on what was at that point a tired franchise. For more of Jonathan's work: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/jonathanballcom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/jonathanballcom/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.strangerfiction.ca/⁠⁠⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/strangerfiction/message

Greetings for Season 10, Episode 10 of Thoth-Hermes Podcast. In a calendrical resonance, Rudolf meets up with Robert Gordon- exactly one year after their last episode together! A gregarious Australian, Robert holds an M.A. in Museum Studies from University College London. In 2022, Lewis Masonic publishing released his book 21st Century Rosicrucianism. Today's exploration centers on Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly in the context of language-based models. Rudolf characterizes digital technology as typically either a non-topic or guarded subject in the worldviews of esotericists. Later, Robert observes that many depth creators in high-technology, green technology, and adjacent fields have esoteric involvement. With these twin realities concurrent, the discussion emphasizes the need for active contribution to societal conversations about AI as a “technology of the imagination”. As both men gamely note, we are in the 21st Century, not the 16th- as much as we seek to honor history. Robert and Rudolf note the need for “reverential use of science”, Robert noting that Newton wrote more on theology than physics. Though exoteric religious doctrine is often at odds with the Esoteric (particularly in America), some parallels are noted. One is the belief in a higher Source as the bestower of human imagination, and consequently a form of sanctity in humans' creative actions. Does AI connect to the Source through humanity? Is it fundamentally “natural” or “unnatural”? And how does the subjective, constructed nature of human-to-human communication mirror controversies with AI? Robert's utopian science-novel he wrote in 2015 There is some specific time spent with the question of AI and it's visual “art” forays. Robert truly “goes there” makes a comparison to alchemical manuscripts' images. Can content and imaginal inputs from humans produce outputs with “soul”? Could the vast flow of creative information placed into AI datasets produce a new form of “collective unconscious”? In many cases, today's conversation walks a non-directive, even-handed line between answering these questions and placing them back to the listener. The “hubris of the magi” narrative is acknowledged, as well as the mythos of Daedalus. Do we only hear about the hubris that creates catastrophe? Other careful questions include: can we emphasize the use of AI for sorcery, hall-of-mirrors illusion, or as a possible bulwark against sorcery? Could AI be an actual human-created agent of healing in our society? Can we redevelop a cultural norm of functionally conversing with disagreement? Could AI help us? Does AI have to be marketplace centered or could it assist with counterbalance in the current corruption of political systems? Can AI possibly contribute or experience states that we broadly term as “shamanic”? Is there anything that this human creation can “unlock” for us? Can it become a “technological tradition of imagination”? What human wisdom is offered in the distinction between “dogmatic” and “voluntarily enigmatic”? These prompts are all introduced and posed on today's episode. Enjoy! I have posted this image already last year, when Robert and I speak in Season 9. But for today's subject it is even more important that you have a look at this website and the blog! Robert Gordon's website "Future Conscience" SRIA London (Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia) has number of highly interesting talks on Video which partly also touch our subject - and Robert Gordon also appears in them! Music played in this episode

Presidents like to take credit when the economy is booming or deflect blame when things turn sour. Despite plenty of positive economic news, polls show that President Biden's economic agenda -- and his repeated invocation of Bidenomics -- still aren't catching on with the American public, however. In this episode, Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon explains why ordinary Americans relate to Bidenomics differently than the White House does. Moreover, when it comes to the president's larger aim of ameliorating income inequality, Gordon contends that formidable, long-term structural changes in global capitalism and U.S. manufacturing stand in the way of creating a more even distribution of wealth. From 1870 to 1970, a slew of one-time innovations catalyzed economic growth. Since the 1970s, the decline of unions, increases in imports and immigration, poor educational outcomes at the bottom end of the economic spectrum, the effects of automation in destroying middle-income jobs, and the decline of purchasing power of the minimum wage have helped make income inequality worse.

Noah Smith and Erik Torenberg discuss Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto (a16z), the last waves of economic innovation, energy advancement, and predict the next wave of productivity gains from private and government-enabled innovation. Daffy is offering Econ 102 listeners a free $25 for the charity of their choice when they join: https://www.daffy.org/econ102 – Sponsors: GIVEWELL | DAFFY | NETSUITE  Have you ever wondered where your donation could have the most impact? GiveWell has now spent over 15 years researching charitable organizations and only directs funding to the highest impact opportunities they've found in global health and poverty alleviation. Make informed decisions about high-impact giving. If you've never donated through GiveWell before, you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year, or as long as matching funds last. To claim your match, go to givewell.org and pick “Podcast” and enter Econ 102 at checkout.  Daffy is the most modern and accessible donor-advised fund, making it easier to put money aside for charity. You can make your tax-deductible contributions all at once or set aside a little each week or month. And you don't just have to donate cash, you can easily contribute stocks, ETFs, or crypto. Plus, you never have to track receipts from your donations again. It's free to get started and Econ 102 listeners get $25 towards the charity of their choice. Daffy is offering Econ 102 listeners a free $25 for the charity of their choice when they join Daffy https://www.daffy.org/econ102  NetSuite has 25 years of providing financial software for all your business needs. More than 36,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform head to NetSuite http://netsuite.com/102 and download your own customized KPI checklist. – RECOMMENDED PODCAST:  Every week investor and writer of the popular newsletter The Diff, Byrne Hobart, and co-host Erik Torenberg discuss today's major inflection points in technology, business, and markets – and help listeners build a diversified portfolio of trends and ideas for the future. Subscribe to “The Riff” with Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg: https://link.chtbl.com/theriff – Econ 102 is a part of the Turpentine podcast network. To learn more: www.turpentine.co – LINKS: - Noah Smith, Thoughts on Techno-Optimism https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/thoughts-on-techno-optimism  - Marc Andreessen's Techno-Optimist Manifesto https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/ - Robert Gordon, The Rise and Fall of Economic Growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_American_Growth#:~:text=Gordon%20considers%20that%20the%20apparent,growth%20between%201920%20and%201970. - Miles Kimball (Econ 102's actual Econ 102 professor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Kimball – X / TWITTER: @noahpinion (Noah) @eriktorenberg (Erik) – TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Episode Preview (01:25) Reaction to Marc Andreessen's techno-optimism manifesto (04:22) Where Noah disagrees: technology does not always empower individuals (08:05) How to overcome the natural incentive problem of innovation (11:55) Economist Robert Gordon and no analog to step changes in innovation (15:50) Sponsors: Daffy | NetSuite (21:50) Nuclear energy and other energy advancements (29:40) GDP is utterly unprepared for changing preferences (33:40) Productivity boom 1987-2004 (36:58) Was the smartphone actually a step change in productivity? (39:42) Next wave of innovation (41:50) Where Noah disagrees with Marc Andreessen (44:15)Government vs privatized enablement of innovation (49:50) Real sustainability is important and possible

As climate change reaches a boiling point, why are major insurers departing from extreme weather-prone states? Robert Gordon, Senior Vice President at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, joins Double Take to discuss the reasons behind their exit.

Robert Gordon Hardie, Jr. came into the world in 1854 - the son of Major Robert Gordon Hardie, Sr. and Frances Whiting Hyde. He would go on to become a portrait painter and rise to fame in the art world. He grew up on Canal Street but traveled the world in pursuit of his art. Here's his story...

Today Arwen Lewis welcomes Rob Bailey to the show! Rob is a Manhattan-based guitarist/vocalist/songwriter and music producer. Career highlights include studio, TV, and live concert work with pop artists Enrique Iglesias, Mandy Moore, Delta Goodrem (The Voice, AU), Broadway and off-Broadway appearances (guitar work on Billy Joel's Movin' Out and David Bowie's Lazarus), and work on hundreds of commercials and various soundtracks including campaigns for CK, Kenneth Cole, and John Varvatos. RB also maintains a private teaching practice, performs regularly in NYC with the highly touted event band Chevy and The Fam, and is currently signed to Australia's hard rock hub Golden Robot Records with the band P$$R which also features Guns ‘n Roses drummer Frank Ferrer Here is just a partial list of the artists and songwriters Rob has worked with: Aerosmith, Anastacia, Cyndi Lauper, Allen Touissant, Jive Jones, David Johansen, David Clement, Enrique Iglesias, Delta Goodrem, Mandy Moore, Blake Morgan, Jesse Malin, Jesse Galante, Maria Christensen, Lisa Lisa, John DeNicola, Peter Lewis (Moby Grape), Arwen Lewis, Russ Irwin, Tony Kaye (director) Tony Vincent (the Voice), Robert Gordon, Jaime Hartman, Ben's Brother, Mule Kick, Madysin Hatter, Erin Evermore. On INSTAGRAM - @bobbergram The Arwen Lewis Show Host | Arwen Lewis Executive Producer | Jeremiah D. Higgins Producer - Sound Engineer - Richard “Dr. D” Dugan https://arwenlewismusic.com/ On Instagram, Follow Arwen Lewis Here: @thearwenlewisshow @arwenlewis www.thejeremiahshow.com On Instagram @jeremiahdhiggins https://linktr.ee/jeremiahdhiggins

Thanks for the shout-out Rob! Here is just a partial list of the artists and songwriters Rob has worked with: Aerosmith, Anastacia, Cyndi Lauper, Allen Touissant, Jive Jones, David Johansen, David Clement, Enrique Iglesias, Delta Goodrem, Mandy Moore, Blake Morgan, Jesse Malin, Jesse Galante, Maria Christensen, Lisa Lisa, John DeNicola, Peter Lewis (Moby Grape), Arwen Lewis, Russ Irwin, Tony Kaye (director) Tony Vincent (the Voice), Robert Gordon, Jaime Hartman, Ben's Brother, Mule Kick, Madysin Hatter, Erin Evermore. On INSTAGRAM - @bobbergram The Arwen Lewis Show Host | Arwen Lewis Executive Producer | Jeremiah D. Higgins Producer - Sound Engineer - Richard “Dr. D” Dugan arwenlewismusic.com/ On Instagram, Follow Arwen Lewis Here: @thearwenlewisshow @arwenlewis www.thejeremiahshow.com On Instagram @jeremiahdhiggins linktr.ee/jeremiahdhiggins

In this episode, Commissioner Echols goes on the road the Fitzgerald to visit with his son, David, about EV mowers. Then, Scott Slade interviews Tim, DeKalb's Robert Gordon wins a sustainability award, Tim interviews young entrepreneurs in Savannah. In the final segment, Tim interviews State Rep. Jeremiah Moore, elected at 27.

Our guest this week to share 3 thoughts on this topic is Hamish Dodds, who is an accomplished chief executive with substantial US and International operating and brand development experience, previously holding roles as President/CEO of Hard Rock International, CEO of CBC Beverages, and President of PepsiCo for South America, Central Americas and the Carribean. TOPIC:  How to Approach International Expansion GUEST: Hamish Dodds   THOUGHT #1 - Be Aware of Geo-Politics THOUGHT #2 - Ensure Viable Economics THOUGHT #3 - Foster Key Relationships   CONNECT: Linkedin: Hamish Dodds   HAMISH DODDS' BIO: Hamish Dodds is an accomplished chief executive with substantial U.S.A. and international operating and brand development experience. He is recognized as a change agent, with principled leadership, clear communication practices, and a track record of building trusted teams and enduring worldwide partnerships. Hamish has extensive experience in operations, market development, global branding and franchising across retail, restaurant, hotel, gaming, entertainment, and consumer goods segments.  From 2004 to 2017, as President and CEO for Hard Rock International, he oversaw all aspects of Hard Rock's U.S. and worldwide businesses. He grew the business to $4.3bn in system revenues across 74 countries. The portfolio included company owned, JV and franchise cafes, bars, hotels, casinos, and live music venues, all showcasing the world's greatest collection of authentic music memorabilia.  Prior to joining Hard Rock, Hamish worked as CEO for CBC (Beverages), and held senior positions with PepsiCo Beverages International, where he worked for 13 years gaining extensive international experience in finance, franchising, joint ventures, and brand management from a number of senior roles in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas.  In his final position with PepsiCo, from 1997 through 2002, Hamish was President for South America, Central America and the Caribbean business unit and was responsible for the major re-franchising, brand recovery and financial turnaround in those markets.  In both his personal and professional capacity, Hamish has championed many philanthropic initiatives and has particularly focused on efforts to address worldwide children's and women's causes through his association with numerous high-profile charities including WhyHunger, BCRF (Breast Cancer Research Foundation) and BTC's campaign to stop sexual slavery.  Hamish holds an honorary doctorate, Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts, Business Studies from Robert Gordon's University in Scotland and is a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Management Accountants.  Hamish enjoys golf, pickleball and travel. He has lived in Kenya, Tanzania, Scotland, England, Switzerland, UAE, Guatemala, and the United States. He is married with three children and currently lives in Orlando.   RESOURCES: Evergreen Podcast Network - EvergereenPodcasts.com Thoughts That Rock – ThoughtsThatRock.com Certified Rock Star - CertifiedRockStar.com Booky Call - https://www.bookycall.com Booky Call - Book Review App on Apple - Apps.Apple.com Booky Call - Book Review App on Google Play - Play.Google.Com  Service That Rocks: Create Unforgettable Experiences and Turn Customers into Fans (Jim Knight) - ServiceThatRocksBook.com Leadership That Rocks: Take Your Brand's Culture to Eleven and Amp Up Results (Jim Knight) - LeadershipThatRocksBook.com Culture That Rocks: How to Revolutionize Your Company's Culture (Jim Knight) – CultureThatRocks.com Black Sheep: Unleash the Extraordinary, Awe-Inspiring, Undiscovered You (Brant Menswar) - FindYourBlackSheep.com Rock ‘n Roll With It: Overcoming the Challenge of Change (Brant Menswar) – RocknRollWithIt.com Cannonball Kids' cancer – CannonballKidscancer.org Big Kettle Drum - BigKettleDrum.com Spectacle Photography (Show/Website Photos) – SpectaclePhoto.com Jeffrey Todd “JT” Keel (Show Music) - JT Keel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is a commentary and does not contain any copyrighted material of the reference source. We strongly recommend accessing/buying the reference source at the same time. ■Reference Source https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_gordon_the_death_of_innovation_the_end_of_growth ■Post on this topic (You can get FREE learning materials!) https://englist.me/131-academic-words-reference-from-robert-gordon-the-death-of-innovation-the-end-of-growth-ted-talk/ ■Youtube Video https://youtu.be/gUcgMC_vl8Y (All Words) https://youtu.be/HmA3CH59Eok (Advanced Words) https://youtu.be/j5rA8v7KdNE (Quick Look) ■Top Page for Further Materials https://englist.me/ ■SNS (Please follow!)

Daniel Jeanrenaud in conversation with David Eastaugh https://thekingsnakes.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-the-old-waldorf-june-5-1981   THE KINGSNAKES – Live at the Old Waldorf: June 5, 1981 A wild and dangerous rockabilly band! That's what the Kingsnakes were in San Francisco in 1980, part of a local music scene comprised of punk, new wave, and hard rock acts. Led by Frenchman Daniel Jeanrenaud, a fervent disciple of Gene Vincent, the Kingsnakes also featured James Ferrell (guitar), Ze Moita (bass), Danny Mihm (drums) and Karl Malinowski (guitar). This previously unreleased live set captures the band opening for Robert Gordon at the Old Waldorf, just a few months before they supported Chuck Berry at the same venue. Local KALX deejay Terry Hammer was on hand to record the raucous soundboard mix. The final two songs on this album are bonus studio sessions. Live at the Old Waldorf: June 5, 1981, is part of Liberation Hall's ongoing “Sounds from the San Francisco Underground” series.

"I approached and signed all of the first weird Warp acts." The Sheffield record producer and label cofounder discusses starting the UK label and the early days of bleep techno. Before Warp became the landmark label it is today, it was a Sheffield record store. Robert Gordon was an employee there in the early '80s, working alongside colleagues Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell, with whom he'd start the label in 1989. Listeners familiar with the contemporary UK techno landscape may associate Warp with luminaries like Aphex Twin and other names associated with IDM and bleep techno. It also released a lot of artists who were recording in a Sheffield studio called FON, which is where Robert Gordon found his footing even before starting Warp. In this Exchange—conducted by DJ, producer, CDR founder and Resident Advisor board member Tony Nwachukwu—Gordon talks about FON and laying the groundwork for the Sheffield scene. In 1985, he recalls, it was the first local commercial 24-track studio and attracted luminaries like David Bowie, Yazz and groups tied to post-punk band Cabaret Voltaire. More recently, it's produced work by 808 State, Nightmares On Wax and Sweet Exorcist. Gordon also reflects on FON's early days. It was foundational to the sound of the '00s and formed a tight-knit community around itself that eventually became intrinsic to a bigger musical movement. Although Gordon left Warp in 1991, his A&Ring for the label—along with his own productions and engineering assistance—defined its sound. Listen to their conversation in full.

Duran Duran [00:29] "Save a Prayer" Rio Harvest ST-12211 1982 Do you want New Wave or do you want... a ballad? How about both?! The Roland Kirk Quartet featuring Elvin Jones [06:04] "Mystical Dream" Rip, Rig & Panic Limelight LS 86027 1965 Roland Kirk - tenor sax, Jaki Byard - Piano, Richard Davis - Bass, Elvin Jones - Drums. Remember the name of this album when we get to Albums and all that begin with the letter Y as in Yankee. Herb Alpert [08:40] "1980" Rise A&M Records SP-3714 1979 Herb Alpert helps NBC out with a little instrumental for the then upcoming 1980 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Sir Eugene Goossens Conducting The London Symphony [11:06] "Introductio - Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) L'Adoration de la Terre (Adoration of the Earth)" The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du Printemps) Everest 3047 1960 blah Manfred Mann's Earth Band [15:54] "Blinded by the Light" The Roaring Silence Warner Bros. Records BS 2965 1976 More popular than The Boss's original (https://youtu.be/eJkkMgM1vIQ?t=20). Could definitely edit out the noodly scoodly guitar solo break if you ask me. This album has probably the most disconcerting cover art in my collection. Robert Gordon with Link Wray [23:03] "Red Hot" Robert Gordon with Link Wray Private Stock PS 2030 1977 Solid cover of Billy "The Kid" Emerson's Sun Records stomper (https://youtu.be/Y0nGvIXp_TM). Gordon's first outing following a stint with the Tuff Darts (https://youtu.be/Yc4dT3YI9H8). Roger Miller [25:26] "Whistle Stop" Story and Songs from Robin Hood Disneyland 3810 1973 Tell 'em Roger... er, Alan-a-Dare. Lou Reed [29:22] "White Light/White Heat" Rock 'n' Roll Animal RCA AYL1-3664 1980 (1974 original release) Lou gets all glam with the rendition of the Velvets' excitable number. P.J. Soles [34:27] "Rock 'n' Roll High School" Rock 'n' Roll High School (Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Sire SRK 6070 1979 Who else but Riff Randell (https://youtu.be/TYrvJynOoS4) (P.J. Soles)? Robert Gordon [36:40] "Black Slacks" Rock Billy Boogie RCA PL 13294 1979 Indeed, more from Mr. Gordon, this time deftly handling the Joe Bennett & the Sparkletones' classic (https://youtu.be/VcDAlATFK94). The Cramps [38:26] "Heartbreak Hotel" Rockinnreelininaucklandnewzeelandxxx Vengeance Records 669 1987 Lux, Poison Ivy, Candy del Mar, and Nick Knox recorded live at the Galaxy in Auckland NZ in 1986. Tim Curry [43:07] "Sweet Transvestite" The Rocky Horror Picture Show Original Cast Ode Records OSV-21653 1978 (1975 original release) None other than Frank N Furter (https://youtu.be/ZCZDWZFtyWY). Cash Pony [46:28] "Moon Mobile" Roughhousing self-released  2018 The Bay Area's very own. Waylon Jennings [50:41] "I've Always Been Crazy" Rowdy Country K-Tel WU 3680 1983 Same Waylon, same. This single went to number one on the Hot Country songs in 1978, despite Waylon getting busted on possession of cocaine charges the previous year. Outlaw indeed. The Beatles [54:56] "I'm Looking Through You" Rubber Soul Capitol Records SW 2442 1983 (1965 original release) Now there's some stereo separation for you. It was a toss-up between this and "Think for Yourself", but I was feeling this track more. In the key of Ab for those of you playing along at home. Music behind the DJ: "That's a Nice Cap" by George Martin & Orchestra

The conventional narrative about the economic history of World War II says that new learning from wartime mobilization jumpstarted a postwar golden age of fast economic growth. But, economist Alexander Field writes in his 2011 book, A Great Leap Forward, "It was not principally the war that laid the foundation for postwar prosperity. It was technological progress across a broad frontier of the American economy during the 1930s." Field develops that argument in his new book, The Economic Consequences of U.S. Mobilization for the Second World War, released last fall. In this episode of Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I'm joined by Alex to discuss his argument.Alex is the Michel and Mary Orradre Professor of Economics at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business.In This Episode* Depression-era technological progress* Economic detective work (8:04)* What about the scientific advances of WWII? (13:23)* The US economy if WWII never happened (17:39)Below is an edited transcript of our conversationDepression-era technological progressJames Pethokoukis: You write in A Great Leap Forward, a book that I consult frequently and mention frequently in my writings: “The years 1929-1941 were, in the aggregate, the most technologically progressive of any comparable period in U.S. economic history. … It was not principally the war that laid the foundation for postwar prosperity. It was technological progress across a broad frontier of the American economy during the 1930s.” Your new book builds upon that argument, but could you, just for a moment, give a quick summary of A Great Leap Forward, and then how that moves into your new book?Alexander Field: The basic argument of A Great Leap Forward was that behind the backdrop of double-digit unemployment for at least a decade, potential output was growing by leaps and bounds during the Great Depression. It wasn't really recognized until Simon Kuznets had to try to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of what the potential of the economy could be. But the contributors to that were, I think, several. Number one was the last third of the conversion of the internal transmission of power within American factories from the shafts and belts, which was a signature of the 19th-century factory, to fractional-horsepower electric motors and electric wiring. And the second part was just an enormous amount, surprisingly, of research and development spending. Just astounding, if you think of the Depression as being so disastrous macroeconomically, but in terms of the number of people employed growing by leaps and bounds, number of labs established. And then finally, although it's widely accepted that the New Deal spending was too small in a Keynesian sense to immediately bring the economy out of the Depression, nevertheless, that spending on streets and highways and bridges and hydropower and so on had very strong positive supply-side effects. I think it's the combination of those three factors that I see as responsible for making potential output so much larger in 1941 than people thought it was.For the layman, your finding in that book, your thesis, is extraordinarily counterintuitive. You would never expect that underneath that sky-high unemployment number and the failing banks and the breadlines, there was this sort of innovative ferment happening and foundations laid for future progress. Similarly, to the extent that people would have an economic opinion about World War II, I would guess: 1) that it brought us out of the Great Depression, and 2) that it was a period of key advances, key technologies and the fact maybe we learned how to do things more efficiently during the war, whether it's build boats or what have you. Those two things are what played a huge role in postwar prosperity—I think that might be sort of the everyman way they would conceive of it. That is not exactly what you found.I think you've done a very good job characterizing what I see as the two key themes in the conventional wisdom about the Second World War. Basically, the argument that fiscal and monetary stimulus rapidly closed the output gap, the unemployment rate went from under 10 percent in ‘41 to unimaginably low, below 2 percent, in ‘43 and '44. That's accepted and I'm not challenging that. But the second part of the conventional wisdom is what the economists call learning by doing: the emphasis on the decline in unit costs with accumulated output as a result of producing military durables. And the argument is exactly as you stated it. The argument is that learning spilled over into the postwar period and kind of underlined the supply side foundations for the golden age, which is ‘48 to ‘73. Now, my argument is different.I see the Second World War from a productivity history perspective as a detour. My argument is that the progress, the growth of potential output up through 1941, that's essentially most of the reason why the US stands astride the world economy in '48, not what happened between ‘41 and '48. It might have been different if the US had persisted in producing a hundred thousand piston-driven aircraft a year. But we didn't. We didn't produce piston-driven aircraft. Most of the products that we got very good at making, we stopped making them fairly soon after Victory over Japan Day. And I view most of that specific human capital as not really having a great deal of relevance after the war.As you mentioned, the things we got good at making were not just the instruments of war, but the instruments of war at a particular period. They were not going to be applicable to future conflicts, but they're also not applicable to a civilian economy that, once the war was over, began to expand very quickly. You mentioned the airplanes. I would also assume the kind of ship building that was done in the war was also not particularly applicable to the post-war era.That's right. That's exactly right. I see basically, the success of US industry under government leadership in producing the military ordinance that supplied our armies, as well as those of Britain and the Soviet Union, our allies, and so on — I see that basically as the application of technologies that had been honed in the ‘20s and particularly in the 1930s, producing automobiles and refrigerators, and applying that management experience to mass producing military durables, rather than the view that it was experience producing military durables that laid the foundations for the postwar period in terms of the supply side.Economic detective workI think people would think that we didn't need to look anymore at the Great Depression or World War II, that this is, they would say, settled science. We know exactly what happened and why it happened. Apparently the role of the World War II, what happened there, is not settled science. So what were people missing previously? What did you find that presents a different perspective?I think, as you say, it began with the findings about the Great Depression. I think what we're doing in the business of research, particularly academic research, is we're researching things: We're trying to find something new to say. But finding something new to say is only part of it; it also has to be something that actually might be true. And so it really it came out of really deep immersion in a variety of sources, both statistical and documentary: reading the minutes of the War Production Board, reading the minutes of the planning committee. And as this happened, a lot of preconceptions that I had about the war began to fall away. For example, the central empirical finding, surprising finding, in this book, or the argument, is that the productivity of American manufacturing—and it is within manufacturing that we would expect to see the effects of learning by doing—actually dropped dramatically between 1941 and 1945.And one of the things that I kind of picked up from this immersion in the sources was, rather than a view of American industry during the war as 24/7, 365 days a year, I get a picture of really profound production intermittency. In other words, essentially the need to shut down production lines, because it's a shortage economy. You've moved from a surplus economy to a shortage economy; sub-assemblies and raw materials and ultimately labor are being rationed. And if you can't get the heat exchanger you need, then the whole line is going to sit there. It's a very different view. And then you see this being said. In [War Production Board chairman Donald] Nelson's biography he talks about destroyer escorts: “Well, they were sitting there for six months because they couldn't get the part that they needed to complete it.” And those are kind of throwaway lines. They're there, but they're not part of the kind of standard narrative; they're kind of overlooked as anomalies. And I don't want to get too Thomas Kuhn-ian about that, but if you start kind of pulling those anomalies together and assembling them and so on, then you get a different picture. And that's what I've tried to articulate in the book.I love your role as a kind of economic detective. It's not just about going to the BLS website and pulling up the data and then off you go. There's some real detective work as a historian, as much as an economist, going on here. It's really interesting thinking about the narrative because I think you're right that I picture December 7th, 1941, we head off to war and then it's all hands on deck, the production lines are never quiet, the steel mills are never cool, and it's all that way until August 1945. But perhaps now having gone through this pandemic, we're a little more aware of what happens when you have a shortage economy, which is what you found.Yeah, it's absolutely the case. I mean, ‘42 was absolutely a chaotic, terrible year. I would say there was no consensus in Washington that the United States was going to win the war, and it wasn't just the problems of suddenly having to produce a radically different set of products and making all this transition. The Japanese and the Germans weren't making it any easier for us, and I talk about that in the book as well. I think also vastly overlooked: I had absolutely no idea of the severity of what I call the rubber famine in the United States. When the Japanese overran Singapore in February '42 and then rapidly shut off all of the exports, they cut off over 95 percent of the one strategic material in which the United States had effectively no domestic sourcing. And they were panicked, absolutely panicked about this, the Rubber Survey Committee. So that was another negative supply shock. And then the Germans were enormously successful in torpedoing what I call the tanker pipeline that was bringing petroleum and petroleum products from east Texas and Louisiana to the eastern seaboard. That's how it was moved and so forth. And between January and June of ‘42, they torpedoed 400 ships in the Atlantic and the Caribbean and just completely shut that down. And there were also serious consequences about that.What about the scientific advances of WWII?Was the war a time of great science productivity? Or is that also a detour toward science that was not as applicable to the postwar period, and we were not able to build on the gains and science of the ‘20s and ‘30s and so forth?The evidence is pretty clear, and I would cite James Conant, former president of Harvard and also a member of the Rubber Survey Committee, basically saying, “During the war, basic scientific research was shut down.” This was an all-hands-on-deck, we're going to essentially exploit our existing larder of scientific knowledge to fight the war. Now, sure, obviously there were developments in terms of technology and science during the war. I can talk about some of them. We could talk about jet engines. It's clear that jet-engine technology did advance during the war. But look, aircraft and aircraft-engine technology was advancing very rapidly in the 1930s. And you have to ask the counterfactual: What would've happened without that? As far as the United States, we never flew any jet engines in the Second World War.Nuclear power: We spent $2 billion on the Manhattan project and so on. And I think the first nuclear power plant was in England in ‘56, I think. And we obviously have relied to some degree on nuclear power. I think the jury is kind of still out on the extent to which that was a big plus. And it's operated only with enormous subsidies in terms of government accepting the liability limits and so on. So we could talk about other factors. There were some significant institutional consequences of the Second World War, but from a technological perspective, I do see it as a detour. And as far as basic science, I think this is one of those areas in which there is not a lot of dispute. It was shut down as was R&D development in terms of consumer durables.What sort of response have you gotten from other economists, other economic historians?There have been sort of people nibbling at the edges. They're not happy with one little thing, one or the other. But I think the reality is that World War II is not something that economic historians have given that much attention to. The time series, econometricians will typically drop the observations from World War II: “Ah, it was a controlled economy. Everything was messed up. We can't run our [models].” And so on. The basic thesis I have not gotten a lot of pushback on.When I saw that your book had come out, the first thing that popped in my head, since I write a lot about productivity growth, was a passage in Robert Gordon's book in which he very specifically writes about labor productivity in World War II and how the improved production techniques and so forth were not forgotten after the war. What you're describing is a very different view of productivity.What Bob Gordon did in chapter 16. . .Obviously you're familiar with it.I read all of the manuscript in chapters, so yes, I am quite familiar with the book. And what he did in chapter 16 was, I think, absolutely crystallized and state very clearly the second key theme, in terms of the conventional wisdom, about the war. He went beyond that. He then kind of advertised it as novel. But in the book, if you read the book carefully, I have considerable documentation because whenever you're trying to say something novel, you have to persuade people that we didn't already know this and so on. And what I think Bob is doing, basically, there is just absorbing and very clearly stating what is the received wisdom by many historians and economic historians. And I just think it's wrong.The US economy if WWII never happenedI think one of the more intriguing economic counterfactuals is what the American economy looks like in the ‘40s and in the postwar era if there was no postwar era—if all else equal, there was no need for a war. If we had not had this diversion, what does the economy of the United States in the second half of the 20th century look like?It is a counterfactual. One thing I would say is that the war did interrupt a very strong trajectory of productivity growth, both labor productivity and total factor productivity, as the output gap closed between ‘39 and ‘41. And what you're seeing there in terms of my interpretation is, number one, just a continuation of that trend during the Depression of very strong productivity growth, secular trend, combined with a boost also from closing the output gap because of the pro-cyclicality of TFP. Now, if you just were to statistically extrapolate that through the ‘41 to ‘48 period, things look pretty good. It's a questionable kind of exercise in terms of how accurate that would be.If you look the world in 1948, people, historians, everybody else is looking at that and they're seeing the United States is standing like an economic colossus astride the world. The Soviet Union has lost 20 million people. Germany: Dresden, Hamburg, they've been fire bombed. England has had to basically liquidate its overseas economic empire to pay for the war. Japan has had two atomic bombs and virtually all of the other major cities have been fire bombed with incendiaries and so on. And I think it's natural, particularly because the US was victorious and so on, and particularly because it was so successful in production—but of course, productivity is not the same as production; it's production per unit input—because it was so successful in that to say that was attributable to the war years. And again, I come back to my thesis, which is: No, I see essentially in ‘48, the US had a major productivity lead over Western Europe and Japan, and the next 30 years, what the French call “les trente glorieuses” and so forth, essentially saw living standards converging among the developed world as that productivity gap is closed. But my argument is that that productivity gap is already quite evident in 1941. It's not a function of the war. It's there in spite of the war.So even without the destruction to our competitors in World War II and our lack of destruction, the US in 1950 would still be standing astride the world as an economic colossus on the technological frontier, even without the war.Right. It's interesting to think about American industry prewar, say in the ‘30s, and postwar. Let's talk about the American automobile industry, because that was central in terms of the prosecution of the war, in terms of the conversion of those factories and the contractors operating, the automobile industry firms operating these big defense plants and so on. Economic historians basically agree that the 1930s was probably the most dynamic period in terms of innovation in American automobiles, in terms of the development of industry. Do you really want to look at the 1950s and say that those were the glory years of American US manufacturing? I mean, the tail fins and so on, and the cars lasted three years, and we essentially owned the marketplace. We weren't threatened by foreign imports yet. But I don't see a major upward progression in that direction. I do want to say, though, in terms of the legacy of the war, that there were clearly some important things that were different because of the war and maybe it wouldn't have been if we hadn't had it. Number one, we had a compression of wages. So there was essentially 30 years of reduced inequality in income and wealth in the United States. Number two, little things like, for example, the incredibly peculiar system whereby Americans provide healthcare tied to your employer. It's just an artifact of what Henry Kaiser did when, because of caps on wages, he wasn't able to raise wages, so we'll have benefits, we'll have hospitals and so on. The introduction of tax withholding, because of the high tax rates, gave the federal government greater fiscal capacity. Blacks did very well. Many American blacks essentially had the opportunity to move from unskilled to semi-skilled positions. So yes, there were some consequences. I don't want to suggest that everything was exactly the same or worse. I wanted to get that on the record. But in terms of the general trajectory of the growth of productivity and potential output, I would argue that the war was a detour.Then to what extent was the immediate postwar boom — the ‘50s, ‘60s, heading into the early ‘70s — how much of that was based on tech progress and innovation that emerged in those decades, and how much was really building substantially on the foundations from the ‘20s and ‘30s?There's a couple of things. First of all, the ‘50s and ‘60s did benefit from relatively high levels of aggregate demand, partly because of military Keynesianism and the Cold War. So that problem was not so great. As far as the technology overlap, I think if there was learning during the war, and in chapter nine of my book I talk about this—and it's somewhat speculative there—I don't think it was within manufacturing. It's not the traditional emphasis on learning by doing. It was on logistics. It was on essentially the efforts, particularly in the military, in terms of the enormous knowledge, the use of linear programming, the gradual diffusion of those techniques to the private sector, the development of containerization, multimodal transit and so on. So if I were to kind of say in the post-war period, “what's the productivity legacy?” I think maybe we've been barking up the wrong tree and maybe more emphasis needs to be placed there.I read various comments from economists at the end of World War II and maybe right at the beginning of the postwar period, and there seemed to be a lot of pessimism about what would happen. Are we going to go back into a Great Depression? What's going to happen when all of these soldiers come back? Am I overstating that, that the postwar boom seemed to have been kind of a surprise to those economists?If you're thinking about actual output, a couple of things matter. Number one, potential matters, but also the output gap matters. And the big concern among economists at the end of the Second World War was aggregate demand. In other words, they say, “Once all of this military spending stops, essentially, it's going to be back to the 1930s” and so forth. And that didn't happen. I think the conventional wisdom is probably right. It is that the balance sheets of American households were just in great shape, they couldn't buy certain stuff, they were being well fully employed. They had a large lot of deferred demand for cars and washing machines. I think you're absolutely right. There was a lot of pessimism, but it was mostly focused on aggregate demand. I mean, in one sense, who cares about potential if you're way below potential? And that was, I think, what was driving that pessimism.My last question is about your previous book. I just want to mention again the name of your current book, which is The Economic Consequences of US Mobilization for the Second World War. A book I was delighted to see land on my desk. And as I said earlier, your previous book, A Great Leap Forward, one which is well thumbed-through by me. I have one final question about that book. The cover image is the famous Futurama ride from the World's Fair of 1939, New York City. Why did you choose that image?I think because it captured the kind of technological optimism and just sort of unalloyed and uncritical confidence in the ability of science and technology to push the economy forward, which had been absorbed by the population in spite of the double-digit unemployment. And of course, that is consistent with my thesis of what was actually happening in spite of the unemployment. I think that's the reason why I put that there. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

Episode 163 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay", Stax Records, and the short, tragic, life of Otis Redding. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-three minute bonus episode available, on "Soul Man" by Sam and Dave. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by Redding, even if I split into multiple parts. The main resource I used for the biographical details of Redding was Dreams to Remember: Otis Redding, Stax Records, and the Transformation of Southern Soul by Mark Ribowsky. Ribowsky is usually a very good, reliable, writer, but in this case there are a couple of lapses in editing which make it not a book I can wholeheartedly recommend, but the research on the biographical details of Redding seems to be the best. Information about Stax comes primarily from two books: Soulsville USA: The Story of Stax by Rob Bowman, and Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon. Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a great overview of the soul music made in Muscle Shoals, Memphis, and Nashville in the sixties. There are two Original Album Series box sets which between them contain all the albums Redding released in his life plus his first few posthumous albums, for a low price. Volume 1, volume 2. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A quick note before I begin -- this episode ends with a description of a plane crash, which some people may find upsetting. There's also a mention of gun violence. In 2019 the film Summer of Soul came out. If you're unfamiliar with this film, it's a documentary of an event, the Harlem Cultural Festival, which gets called the "Black Woodstock" because it took place in the summer of 1969, overlapping the weekend that Woodstock happened. That event was a series of weekend free concerts in New York, performed by many of the greatest acts in Black music at that time -- people like Stevie Wonder, David Ruffin, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, the Staple Singers, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, and the Fifth Dimension. One thing that that film did was to throw into sharp relief a lot of the performances we've seen over the years by legends of white rock music of the same time. If you watch the film of Woodstock, or the earlier Monterey Pop festival, it's apparent that a lot of the musicians are quite sloppy. This is easy to dismiss as being a product of the situation -- they're playing outdoor venues, with no opportunity to soundcheck, using primitive PA systems, and often without monitors. Anyone would sound a bit sloppy in that situation, right? That is until you listen to the performances on the Summer of Soul soundtrack. The performers on those shows are playing in the same kind of circumstances, and in the case of Woodstock literally at the same time, so it's a fair comparison, and there really is no comparison. Whatever you think of the quality of the *music* (and some of my very favourite artists played at Monterey and Woodstock), the *musicianship* is orders of magnitude better at the Harlem Cultural Festival [Excerpt: Gladys Knight and the Pips “I Heard it Through the Grapevine (live)”] And of course there's a reason for this. Most of the people who played at those big hippie festivals had not had the same experiences as the Black musicians. The Black players were mostly veterans of the chitlin' circuit, where you had to play multiple shows a day, in front of demanding crowds who wanted their money's worth, and who wanted you to be able to play and also put on a show at the same time. When you're playing for crowds of working people who have spent a significant proportion of their money to go to the show, and on a bill with a dozen other acts who are competing for that audience's attention, you are going to get good or stop working. The guitar bands at Woodstock and Monterey, though, hadn't had the same kind of pressure. Their audiences were much more forgiving, much more willing to go with the musicians, view themselves as part of a community with them. And they had to play far fewer shows than the chitlin' circuit veterans, so they simply didn't develop the same chops before becoming famous (the best of them did after fame, of course). And so it's no surprise that while a lot of bands became more famous as a result of the Monterey Pop Festival, only three really became breakout stars in America as a direct result of it. One of those was the Who, who were already the third or fourth biggest band in the UK by that point, either just behind or just ahead of the Kinks, and so the surprise is more that it took them that long to become big in America. But the other two were themselves veterans of the chitlin' circuit. If you buy the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of Monterey Pop, you get two extra discs along with the disc with the film of the full festival on it -- the only two performances that were thought worth turning into their own short mini-films. One of them is Jimi Hendrix's performance, and we will talk about that in a future episode. The other is titled Shake! Otis at Monterey: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Shake! (live at Monterey Pop Festival)"] Otis Redding came from Macon, Georgia, the home town of Little Richard, who became one of his biggest early influences, and like Richard he was torn in his early years between religion and secular music -- though in most other ways he was very different from Richard, and in particular he came from a much more supportive family. While his father, Otis senior, was a deacon in the church, and didn't approve much of blues, R&B, or jazz music or listen to it himself, he didn't prevent his son from listening to it, so young Otis grew up listening to records by Richard -- of whom he later said "If it hadn't been for Little Richard I would not be here... Richard has soul too. My present music has a lot of him in it" -- and another favourite, Clyde McPhatter: [Excerpt: Billy Ward and the Dominoes, "Have Mercy Baby"] Indeed, it's unclear exactly how much Otis senior *did* disapprove of those supposedly-sinful kinds of music. The biography I used as a source for this, and which says that Otis senior wouldn't listen to blues or jazz music at all, also quotes his son as saying that when he was a child his mother and father used to play him "a calypso song out then called 'Run Joe'" That will of course be this one: [Excerpt: Louis Jordan, "Run Joe"] I find it hard to reconcile the idea of someone who refused to listen to the blues or jazz listening to Louis Jordan, but then people are complex. Whatever Otis senior's feelings about secular music, he recognised from a very early age that his son had a special talent, and encouraged him to become a gospel singer. And at the same time he was listening to Little Richard, young Otis was also listening to gospel singers. One particular influence was a blind street singer, Reverend Pearly Brown: [Excerpt: Reverend Pearly Brown, "Ninety Nine and a Half Won't Do"] Redding was someone who cared deeply about his father's opinion, and it might well have been that he would eventually have become a gospel performer, because he started his career with a foot in both camps. What seems to have made the difference is that when he was sixteen, his father came down with tuberculosis. Even a few years earlier this would have been a terminal diagnosis, but thankfully by this point antibiotics had been invented, and the deacon eventually recovered. But it did mean that Otis junior had to become the family breadwinner while his father was sick, and so he turned decisively towards the kind of music that could make more money. He'd already started performing secular music. He'd joined a band led by Gladys Williams, who was the first female bandleader in the area. Williams sadly doesn't seem to have recorded anything -- discogs has a listing of a funk single by a Gladys Williams on a tiny label which may or may not be the same person, but in general she avoided recording studios, only wanting to play live -- but she was a very influential figure in Georgia music. According to her former trumpeter Newton Collier, who later went on to play with Redding and others, she trained both Fats Gonder and Lewis Hamlin, who went on to join the lineup of James Brown's band that made Live at the Apollo, and Collier says that Hamlin's arrangements for that album, and the way the band would segue from one track to another, were all things he'd been taught by Miss Gladys. Redding sang with Gladys Williams for a while, and she took him under her wing, trained him, and became his de facto first manager. She got him to perform at local talent shows, where he won fifteen weeks in a row, before he got banned from performing to give everyone else a chance. At all of these shows, the song he performed was one that Miss Gladys had rehearsed with him, Little Richard's "Heeby Jeebies": [Excerpt: Little Richard, "Heeby Jeebies"] At this time, Redding's repertoire was largely made up of songs by the two greats of fifties Georgia R&B -- Little Richard and James Brown -- plus some by his other idol Sam Cooke, and those singers would remain his greatest influences throughout his career. After his stint with Williams, Redding went on to join another band, Pat T Cake and the Mighty Panthers, whose guitarist Johnny Jenkins would be a major presence in his life for several years. The Mighty Panthers were soon giving Redding top billing, and advertising gigs as featuring Otis "Rockin' Robin" Redding -- presumably that was another song in his live repertoire. By this time Redding was sounding enough like Little Richard that when Richard's old backing band, The Upsetters, were looking for a new singer after Richard quit rock and roll for the ministry, they took Redding on as their vocalist for a tour. Once that tour had ended, Redding returned home to find that Johnny Jenkins had quit the Mighty Panthers and formed a new band, the Pinetoppers. Redding joined that band, who were managed by a white teenager named Phil Walden, who soon became Redding's personal manager as well. Walden and Redding developed a very strong bond, to the extent that Walden, who was studying at university, spent all his tuition money promoting Redding and almost got kicked out. When Redding found this out, he actually went round to everyone he knew and got loans from everyone until he had enough to pay for Walden's tuition -- much of it paid in coins. They had a strong enough bond that Walden would remain his manager for the rest of Redding's life, and even when Walden had to do two years in the Army in Germany, he managed Redding long-distance, with his brother looking after things at home. But of course, there wasn't much of a music industry in Georgia, and so with Walden's blessing and support, he moved to LA in 1960 to try to become a star. Just before he left, his girlfriend Zelma told him she was pregnant. He assured her that he was only going to be away for a few months, and that he would be back in time for the birth, and that he intended to come back to Georgia rich and marry her. Her response was "Sure you is". In LA, Redding met up with a local record producer, James "Jimmy Mack" McEachin, who would later go on to become an actor, appearing in several films with Clint Eastwood. McEachin produced a session for Redding at Gold Star studios, with arrangements by Rene Hall and using several of the musicians who later became the Wrecking Crew. "She's All Right", the first single that came from that session, was intended to sound as much like Jackie Wilson as possible, and was released under the name of The Shooters, the vocal group who provided the backing vocals: [Excerpt: The Shooters, "She's All Right"] "She's All Right" was released on Trans World, a small label owned by Morris Bernstein, who also owned Finer Arts records (and "She's All Right" seems to have been released on both labels). Neither of Bernstein's labels had any great success -- the biggest record they put out was a single by the Hollywood Argyles that came out after they'd stopped having hits -- and they didn't have any connection to the R&B market. Redding and McEachin couldn't find any R&B labels that wanted to pick up their recordings, and so Redding did return to Georgia and marry Zelma a few days before the birth of their son Dexter. Back in Georgia, he hooked up again with the Pinetoppers, and he and Jenkins started trying local record labels, attempting to get records put out by either of them. Redding was the first, and Otis Redding and the Pinetoppers put out a single, "Shout Bamalama", a slight reworking of a song that he'd recorded as "Gamma Lamma" for McEachin, which was obviously heavily influenced by Little Richard: [Excerpt: Otis Redding and the Pinetoppers, "Shout Bamalama"] That single was produced by a local record company owner, Bobby Smith, who signed Redding to a contract which Redding didn't read, but which turned out to be a management contract as well as a record contract. This would later be a problem, as Redding didn't have an actual contract with Phil Walden -- one thing that comes up time and again in stories about music in the Deep South at this time is people operating on handshake deals and presuming good faith on the part of each other. There was a problem with the record which nobody had foreseen though -- Redding was the first Black artist signed to Smith's label, which was called Confederate Records, and its logo was the Southern Cross. Now Smith, by all accounts, was less personally racist than most white men in Georgia at the time, and hadn't intended that as any kind of statement of white supremacy -- he'd just used a popular local symbol, without thinking through the implications. But as the phrase goes, intent isn't magic, and while Smith didn't intend it as racist, rather unsurprisingly Black DJs and record shops didn't see things in the same light. Smith was told by several DJs that they wouldn't play the record while it was on that label, and he started up a new subsidiary label, Orbit, and put the record out on that label. Redding and Smith continued collaborating, and there were plans for Redding to put out a second single on Orbit. That single was going to be "These Arms of Mine", a song Redding had originally given to another Confederate artist, a rockabilly performer called Buddy Leach (who doesn't seem to be the same Buddy Leach as the Democratic politician from Louisiana, or the saxophone player with George Thorogood and the Destroyers). Leach had recorded it as a B-side, with the slightly altered title "These Arms Are Mine". Sadly I can't provide an excerpt of that, as the record is so rare that even websites I've found by rockabilly collectors who are trying to get everything on Confederate Records haven't managed to get hold of copies. Meanwhile, Johnny Jenkins had been recording on another label, Tifco, and had put out a single called "Pinetop": [Excerpt: Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers, "Pinetop"] That record had attracted the attention of Joe Galkin. Galkin was a semi-independent record promoter, who had worked for Atlantic in New York before moving back to his home town of Macon. Galkin had proved himself as a promoter by being responsible for the massive amounts of airplay given to Solomon Burke's "Just Out of Reach (of My Two Open Arms)": [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "Just Out of Reach (of My Two Open Arms)"] After that, Jerry Wexler had given Galkin fifty dollars a week and an expense account, and Galkin would drive to all the Black radio stations in the South and pitch Atlantic's records to them. But Galkin also had his own record label, Gerald Records, and when he went to those stations and heard them playing something from a smaller label, he would quickly negotiate with that smaller label, buy the master and the artist's contract, and put the record out on Gerald Records -- and then he would sell the track and the artist on to Atlantic, taking ten percent of the record's future earnings and a finder's fee. This is what happened with Johnny Jenkins' single, which was reissued on Gerald and then on Atlantic. Galkin signed Jenkins to a contract -- another of those contracts which also made him Jenkins' manager, and indeed the manager of the Pinetops. Jenkins' record ended up selling about twenty-five thousand records, but when Galkin saw the Pinetoppers performing live, he realised that Otis Redding was the real star. Since he had a contract with Jenkins, he came to an agreement with Walden, who was still Jenkins' manager as well as Redding's -- Walden would get fifty percent of Jenkins' publishing and they would be co-managers of Jenkins. But Galkin had plans for Redding, which he didn't tell anyone about, not even Redding himself. The one person he did tell was Jerry Wexler, who he phoned up and asked for two thousand dollars, explaining that he wanted to record Jenkins' follow-up single at Stax, and he also wanted to bring along a singer he'd discovered, who sang with Jenkins' band. Wexler agreed -- Atlantic had recently started distributing Stax's records on a handshake deal of much the same kind that Redding had with Walden. As far as everyone else was concerned, though, the session was just for Johnny Jenkins, the known quantity who'd already released a single for Atlantic. Otis Redding, meanwhile, was having to work a lot of odd jobs to feed his rapidly growing family, and one of those jobs was to work as Johnny Jenkins' driver, as Jenkins didn't have a driving license. So Galkin suggested that, given that Memphis was quite a long drive, Redding should drive Galkin and Jenkins to Stax, and carry the equipment for them. Bobby Smith, who still thought of himself as Redding's manager, was eager to help his friend's bandmate with his big break (and to help Galkin, in the hope that maybe Atlantic would start distributing Confederate too), and so he lent Redding the company station wagon to drive them to the session.The other Pinetoppers wouldn't be going -- Jenkins was going to be backed by Booker T and the MGs, the normal Stax backing band. Phil Walden, though, had told Redding that he should try to take the opportunity to get himself heard by Stax, and he pestered the musicians as they recorded Jenkins' "Spunky": [Excerpt: Johnny Jenkins, "Spunky"] Cropper later remembered “During the session, Al Jackson says to me, ‘The big tall guy that was driving Johnny, he's been bugging me to death, wanting me to hear him sing,' Al said, ‘Would you take some time and get this guy off of my back and listen to him?' And I said, ‘After the session I'll try to do it,' and then I just forgot about it.” What Redding didn't know, though Walden might have, is that Galkin had planned all along to get Redding to record while he was there. Galkin claimed to be Redding's manager, and told Jim Stewart, the co-owner of Stax who acted as main engineer and supervising producer on the sessions at this point, that Wexler had only funded the session on the basis that Redding would also get a shot at recording. Stewart was unimpressed -- Jenkins' session had not gone well, and it had taken them more than two hours to get two tracks down, but Galkin offered Stewart a trade -- Galkin, as Redding's manager, would take half of Stax's mechanical royalties for the records (which wouldn't be much) but in turn would give Stewart half the publishing on Redding's songs. That was enough to make Stewart interested, but by this point Booker T. Jones had already left the studio, so Steve Cropper moved to the piano for the forty minutes that was left of the session, with Jenkins remaining on guitar, and they tried to get two sides of a single cut. The first track they cut was "Hey Hey Baby", which didn't impress Stewart much -- he simply said that the world didn't need another Little Richard -- and so with time running out they cut another track, the ballad Redding had already given to Buddy Leach. He asked Cropper, who didn't play piano well, to play "church chords", by which he meant triplets, and Cropper said "he started singing ‘These Arms of Mine' and I know my hair lifted about three inches and I couldn't believe this guy's voice": [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "These Arms of Mine"] That was more impressive, though Stewart carefully feigned disinterest. Stewart and Galkin put together a contract which signed Redding to Stax -- though they put the single out on the less-important Volt subsidiary, as they did for much of Redding's subsequent output -- and gave Galkin and Stewart fifty percent each of the publishing rights to Redding's songs. Redding signed it, not even realising he was signing a proper contract rather than just one for a single record, because he was just used to signing whatever bit of paper was put in front of him at the time. This one was slightly different though, because Redding had had his twenty-first birthday since the last time he'd signed a contract, and so Galkin assumed that that meant all his other contracts were invalid -- not realising that Redding's contract with Bobby Smith had been countersigned by Redding's mother, and so was also legal. Walden also didn't realise that, but *did* realise that Galkin representing himself as Redding's manager to Stax might be a problem, so he quickly got Redding to sign a proper contract, formalising the handshake basis they'd been operating on up to that point. Walden was at this point in the middle of his Army service, but got the signature while he was home on leave. Walden then signed a deal with Galkin, giving Walden half of Galkin's fifty percent cut of Redding's publishing in return for Galkin getting a share of Walden's management proceeds. By this point everyone was on the same page -- Otis Redding was going to be a big star, and he became everyone's prime focus. Johnny Jenkins remained signed to Walden's agency -- which quickly grew to represent almost every big soul star that wasn't signed to Motown -- but he was regarded as a footnote. His record came out eventually on Volt, almost two years later, but he didn't release another record until 1968. Jenkins did, though, go on to have some influence. In 1970 he was given the opportunity to sing lead on an album backed by Duane Allman and the members of the Muscle Shoals studio band, many of whom went on to form the Allman Brothers Band. That record contained a cover of Dr. John's "I Walk on Guilded Splinters" which was later sampled by Beck for "Loser", the Wu-Tang Clan for "Gun Will Go" and Oasis for their hit "Go Let it Out": [Excerpt: Johnny Jenkins, "I Walk on Guilded Splinters"] Jenkins would play guitar on several future Otis Redding sessions, but would hold a grudge against Redding for the rest of his life for taking the stardom he thought was rightfully his, and would be one of the few people to have anything negative to say about Redding after his early death. When Bobby Smith heard about the release of "These Arms of Mine", he was furious, as his contract with Redding *was* in fact legally valid, and he'd been intending to get Redding to record the song himself. However, he realised that Stax could call on the resources of Atlantic Records, and Joe Galkin also hinted that if he played nice Atlantic might start distributing Confederate, too. Smith signed away all his rights to Redding -- again, thinking that he was only signing away the rights to a single record and song, and not reading the contract closely enough. In this case, Smith only had one working eye, and that wasn't good enough to see clearly -- he had to hold paper right up to his face to read anything on it -- and he simply couldn't read the small print on the contract, and so signed over Otis Redding's management, record contract, and publishing, for a flat seven hundred dollars. Now everything was legally -- if perhaps not ethically -- in the clear. Phil Walden was Otis Redding's manager, Stax was his record label, Joe Galkin got a cut off the top, and Walden, Galkin, and Jim Stewart all shared Redding's publishing. Although, to make it a hit, one more thing had to happen, and one more person had to get a cut of the song: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "These Arms of Mine"] That sound was becoming out of fashion among Black listeners at the time. It was considered passe, and even though the Stax musicians loved the record, Jim Stewart didn't, and put it out not because he believed in Otis Redding, but because he believed in Joe Galkin. As Stewart later said “The Black radio stations were getting out of that Black country sound, we put it out to appease and please Joe.” For the most part DJs ignored the record, despite Galkin pushing it -- it was released in October 1962, that month which we have already pinpointed as the start of the sixties, and came out at the same time as a couple of other Stax releases, and the one they were really pushing was Carla Thomas' "I'll Bring it Home to You", an answer record to Sam Cooke's "Bring it On Home to Me": [Excerpt: Carla Thomas, "I'll Bring it Home to You"] "These Arms of Mine" wasn't even released as the A-side -- that was "Hey Hey Baby" -- until John R came along. John R was a Nashville DJ, and in fact he was the reason that Bobby Smith even knew that Redding had signed to Stax. R had heard Buddy Leach's version of the song, and called Smith, who was a friend of his, to tell him that his record had been covered, and that was the first Smith had heard of the matter. But R also called Jim Stewart at Stax, and told him that he was promoting the wrong side, and that if they started promoting "These Arms of Mine", R would play the record on his radio show, which could be heard in twenty-eight states. And, as a gesture of thanks for this suggestion -- and definitely not as payola, which would be very illegal -- Stewart gave R his share of the publishing rights to the song, which eventually made the top twenty on the R&B charts, and slipped into the lower end of the Hot One Hundred. "These Arms of Mine" was actually recorded at a turning point for Stax as an organisation. By the time it was released, Booker T Jones had left Memphis to go to university in Indiana to study music, with his tuition being paid for by his share of the royalties for "Green Onions", which hit the charts around the same time as Redding's first session: [Excerpt: Booker T. and the MGs, "Green Onions"] Most of Stax's most important sessions were recorded at weekends -- Jim Stewart still had a day job as a bank manager at this point, and he supervised the records that were likely to be hits -- so Jones could often commute back to the studio for session work, and could play sessions during his holidays. The rest of the time, other people would cover the piano parts, often Cropper, who played piano on Redding's next sessions, with Jenkins once again on guitar. As "These Arms of Mine" didn't start to become a hit until March, Redding didn't go into the studio again until June, when he cut the follow-up, "That's What My Heart Needs", with the MGs, Jenkins, and the horn section of the Mar-Keys. That made number twenty-seven on the Cashbox R&B chart -- this was in the period when Billboard had stopped having one. The follow-up, "Pain in My Heart", was cut in September and did even better, making number eleven on the Cashbox R&B chart: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Pain in My Heart"] It did well enough in fact that the Rolling Stones cut a cover version of the track: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Pain in My Heart"] Though Redding didn't get the songwriting royalties -- by that point Allen Toussaint had noticed how closely it resembled a song he'd written for Irma Thomas, "Ruler of My Heart": [Excerpt: Irma Thomas, "Ruler of My Heart"] And so the writing credit was changed to be Naomi Neville, one of the pseudonyms Toussaint used. By this point Redding was getting steady work, and becoming a popular live act. He'd put together his own band, and had asked Jenkins to join, but Jenkins didn't want to play second fiddle to him, and refused, and soon stopped being invited to the recording sessions as well. Indeed, Redding was *eager* to get as many of his old friends working with him as he could. For his second and third sessions, as well as bringing Jenkins, he'd brought along a whole gang of musicians from his touring show, and persuaded Stax to put out records by them, too. At those sessions, as well as Redding's singles, they also cut records by his valet (which was the term R&B performers in those years used for what we'd now call a gofer or roadie) Oscar Mack: [Excerpt: Oscar Mack, "Don't Be Afraid of Love"] For Eddie Kirkland, the guitarist in his touring band, who had previously played with John Lee Hooker and whose single was released under the name "Eddie Kirk": [Excerpt: Eddie Kirk, "The Hawg, Part 1"] And Bobby Marchan, a singer and female impersonator from New Orleans who had had some massive hits a few years earlier both on his own and as the singer with Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns, but had ended up in Macon without a record deal and been taken under Redding's wing: [Excerpt: Bobby Marchan, "What Can I Do?"] Redding would continue, throughout his life, to be someone who tried to build musical careers for his friends, though none of those singles was successful. The changes in Stax continued. In late autumn 1963, Atlantic got worried by the lack of new product coming from Stax. Carla Thomas had had a couple of R&B hits, and they were expecting a new single, but every time Jerry Wexler phoned Stax asking where the new single was, he was told it would be coming soon but the equipment was broken. After a couple of weeks of this, Wexler decided something fishy was going on, and sent Tom Dowd, his genius engineer, down to Stax to investigate. Dowd found when he got there that the equipment *was* broken, and had been for weeks, and was a simple fix. When Dowd spoke to Stewart, though, he discovered that they didn't know where to source replacement parts from. Dowd phoned his assistant in New York, and told him to go to the electronics shop and get the parts he needed. Then, as there were no next-day courier services at that time, Dowd's assistant went to the airport, found a flight attendant who was flying to Memphis, and gave her the parts and twenty-five dollars, with a promise of twenty-five more if she gave them to Dowd at the other end. The next morning, Dowd had the equipment fixed, and everyone involved became convinced that Dowd was a miracle worker, especially after he showed Steve Cropper some rudimentary tape-manipulation techniques that Cropper had never encountered before. Dowd had to wait around in Memphis for his flight, so he went to play golf with the musicians for a bit, and then they thought they might as well pop back to the studio and test the equipment out. When they did, Rufus Thomas -- Carla Thomas' father, who had also had a number of hits himself on Stax and Sun -- popped his head round the door to see if the equipment was working now. They told him it was, and he said he had a song if they were up for a spot of recording. They were, and so when Dowd flew back that night, he was able to tell Wexler not only that the next Carla Thomas single would soon be on its way, but that he had the tapes of a big hit single with him right there: [Excerpt: Rufus Thomas, "Walking the Dog"] "Walking the Dog" was a sensation. Jim Stewart later said “I remember our first order out of Chicago. I was in New York in Jerry Wexler's office at the time and Paul Glass, who was our distributor in Chicago, called in an order for sixty-five thousand records. I said to Jerry, ‘Do you mean sixty-five hundred?' And he said, ‘Hell no, he wants sixty-five thousand.' That was the first order! He believed in the record so much that we ended up selling about two hundred thousand in Chicago alone.” The record made the top ten on the pop charts, but that wasn't the biggest thing that Dowd had taken away from the session. He came back raving to Wexler about the way they made records in Memphis, and how different it was from the New York way. In New York, there was a strict separation between the people in the control room and the musicians in the studio, the musicians were playing from written charts, and everyone had a job and did just that job. In Memphis, the musicians were making up the arrangements as they went, and everyone was producing or engineering all at the same time. Dowd, as someone with more technical ability than anyone at Stax, and who was also a trained musician who could make musical suggestions, was soon regularly commuting down to Memphis to be part of the production team, and Jerry Wexler was soon going down to record with other Atlantic artists there, as we heard about in the episode on "Midnight Hour". Shortly after Dowd's first visit to Memphis, another key member of the Stax team entered the picture. Right at the end of 1963, Floyd Newman recorded a track called "Frog Stomp", on which he used his own band rather than the MGs and Mar-Keys: [Excerpt: Floyd Newman, "Frog Stomp"] The piano player and co-writer on that track was a young man named Isaac Hayes, who had been trying to get work at Stax for some time. He'd started out as a singer, and had made a record, "Laura, We're On Our Last Go-Round", at American Sound, the studio run by the former Stax engineer and musician Chips Moman: [Excerpt: Isaac Hayes, "Laura, We're On Our Last Go-Round"] But that hadn't been a success, and Hayes had continued working a day job at a slaughterhouse -- and would continue doing so for much of the next few years, even after he started working at Stax (it's truly amazing how many of the people involved in Stax were making music as what we would now call a side-hustle). Hayes had become a piano player as a way of getting a little extra money -- he'd been offered a job as a fill-in when someone else had pulled out at the last minute on a gig on New Year's Eve, and took it even though he couldn't actually play piano, and spent his first show desperately vamping with two fingers, and was just lucky the audience was too drunk to care. But he had a remarkable facility for the instrument, and while unlike Booker T Jones he would never gain a great deal of technical knowledge, and was embarrassed for the rest of his life by both his playing ability and his lack of theory knowledge, he was as great as they come at soul, at playing with feel, and at inventing new harmonies on the fly. They still didn't have a musician at Stax that could replace Booker T, who was still off at university, so Isaac Hayes was taken on as a second session keyboard player, to cover for Jones when Jones was in Indiana -- though Hayes himself also had to work his own sessions around his dayjob, so didn't end up playing on "In the Midnight Hour", for example, because he was at the slaughterhouse. The first recording session that Hayes played on as a session player was an Otis Redding single, either his fourth single for Stax, "Come to Me", or his fifth, "Security": [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Security"] "Security" is usually pointed to by fans as the point at which Redding really comes into his own, and started directing the musicians more. There's a distinct difference, in particular, in the interplay between Cropper's guitar, the Mar-Keys' horns, and Redding's voice. Where previously the horns had tended to play mostly pads, just holding chords under Redding's voice, now they were starting to do answering phrases. Jim Stewart always said that the only reason Stax used a horn section at all was because he'd been unable to find a decent group of backing vocalists, and the function the horns played on most of the early Stax recordings was somewhat similar to the one that the Jordanaires had played for Elvis, or the Picks for Buddy Holly, basically doing "oooh" sounds to fatten out the sound, plus the odd sax solo or simple riff. The way Redding used the horns, though, was more like the way Ray Charles used the Raelettes, or the interplay of a doo-wop vocal group, with call and response, interjections, and asides. He also did something in "Security" that would become a hallmark of records made at Stax -- instead of a solo, the instrumental break is played by the horns as an ensemble: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Security"] According to Wayne Jackson, the Mar-Keys' trumpeter, Redding was the one who had the idea of doing these horn ensemble sections, and the musicians liked them enough that they continued doing them on all the future sessions, no matter who with. The last Stax single of 1964 took the "Security" sound and refined it, and became the template for every big Stax hit to follow. "Mr. Pitiful" was the first collaboration between Redding and Steve Cropper, and was primarily Cropper's idea. Cropper later remembered “There was a disc jockey here named Moohah. He started calling Otis ‘Mr. Pitiful' 'cause he sounded so pitiful singing his ballads. So I said, ‘Great idea for a song!' I got the idea for writing about it in the shower. I was on my way down to pick up Otis. I got down there and I was humming it in the car. I said, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?' We just wrote the song on the way to the studio, just slapping our hands on our legs. We wrote it in about ten minutes, went in, showed it to the guys, he hummed a horn line, boom—we had it. When Jim Stewart walked in we had it all worked up. Two or three cuts later, there it was.” [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Mr. Pitiful"] Cropper would often note later that Redding would never write about himself, but that Cropper would put details of Redding's life and persona into the songs, from "Mr. Pitiful" right up to their final collaboration, in which Cropper came up with lines about leaving home in Georgia. "Mr Pitiful" went to number ten on the R&B chart and peaked at number forty-one on the hot one hundred, and its B-side, "That's How Strong My Love Is", also made the R&B top twenty. Cropper and Redding soon settled into a fruitful writing partnership, to the extent that Cropper even kept a guitar permanently tuned to an open chord so that Redding could use it. Redding couldn't play the guitar, but liked to use one as a songwriting tool. When a guitar is tuned in standard tuning, you have to be able to make chord shapes to play it, because the sound of the open strings is a discord: [demonstrates] But you can tune a guitar so all the strings are the notes of a single chord, so they sound good together even when you don't make a chord shape: [demonstrates open-E tuning] With one of these open tunings, you can play chords with just a single finger barring a fret, and so they're very popular with, for example, slide guitarists who use a metal slide to play, or someone like Dolly Parton who has such long fingernails it's difficult to form chord shapes. Someone like Parton is of course an accomplished player, but open tunings also mean that someone who can't play well can just put their finger down on a fret and have it be a chord, so you can write songs just by running one finger up and down the fretboard: [demonstrates] So Redding could write, and even play acoustic rhythm guitar on some songs, which he did quite a lot in later years, without ever learning how to make chords. Now, there's a downside to this -- which is why standard tuning is still standard. If you tune to an open major chord, you can play major chords easily but minor chords become far more difficult. Handily, that wasn't a problem at Stax, because according to Isaac Hayes, Jim Stewart banned minor chords from being played at Stax. Hayes said “We'd play a chord in a session, and Jim would say, ‘I don't want to hear that chord.' Jim's ears were just tuned into one, four, and five. I mean, just simple changes. He said they were the breadwinners. He didn't like minor chords. Marvell and I always would try to put that pretty stuff in there. Jim didn't like that. We'd bump heads about that stuff. Me and Marvell fought all the time that. Booker wanted change as well. As time progressed, I was able to sneak a few in.” Of course, minor chords weren't *completely* banned from Stax, and some did sneak through, but even ballads would often have only major chords -- like Redding's next single, "I've Been Loving You Too Long". That track had its origins with Jerry Butler, the singer who had been lead vocalist of the Impressions before starting a solo career and having success with tracks like "For Your Precious Love": [Excerpt: Jerry Butler, "For Your Precious Love"] Redding liked that song, and covered it himself on his second album, and he had become friendly with Butler. Butler had half-written a song, and played it for Redding, who told him he'd like to fiddle with it, see what he could do. Butler forgot about the conversation, until he got a phone call from Redding, telling him that he'd recorded the song. Butler was confused, and also a little upset -- he'd been planning to finish the song himself, and record it. But then Redding played him the track, and Butler decided that doing so would be pointless -- it was Redding's song now: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "I've Been Loving You Too Long"] "I've Been Loving You Too Long" became Redding's first really big hit, making number two on the R&B chart and twenty-one on the Hot One Hundred. It was soon being covered by the Rolling Stones and Ike & Tina Turner, and while Redding was still not really known to the white pop market, he was quickly becoming one of the biggest stars on the R&B scene. His record sales were still not matching his live performances -- he would always make far more money from appearances than from records -- but he was by now the performer that every other soul singer wanted to copy. "I've Been Loving You Too Long" came out just after Redding's second album, The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads, which happened to be the first album released on Volt Records. Before that, while Stax and Volt had released the singles, they'd licensed all the album tracks to Atlantic's Atco subsidiary, which had released the small number of albums put out by Stax artists. But times were changing and the LP market was becoming bigger. And more importantly, the *stereo* LP market was becoming bigger. Singles were still only released in mono, and would be for the next few years, but the album market had a substantial number of audiophiles, and they wanted stereo. This was a problem for Stax, because they only had a mono tape recorder, and they were scared of changing anything about their setup in case it destroyed their sound. Tom Dowd, who had been recording in eight track for years, was appalled by the technical limitations at the McLemore Ave studio, but eventually managed to get Jim Stewart, who despite -- or possibly because of -- being a white country musician was the most concerned that they keep their Black soul sound, to agree to a compromise. They would keep everything hooked up exactly the same -- the same primitive mixers, the same mono tape recorder -- and Stax would continue doing their mixes for mono, and all their singles would come directly off that mono tape. But at the same time, they would *also* have a two-track tape recorder plugged in to the mixer, with half the channels going on one track and half on the other. So while they were making the mix, they'd *also* be getting a stereo dump of that mix. The limitations of the situation meant that they might end up with drums and vocals in one channel and everything else in the other -- although as the musicians cut everything together in the studio, which had a lot of natural echo, leakage meant there was a *bit* of everything on every track -- but it would still be stereo. Redding's next album, Otis Blue, was recorded on this new equipment, with Dowd travelling down from New York to operate it. Dowd was so keen on making the album stereo that during that session, they rerecorded Redding's two most recent singles, "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and "Respect" (which hadn't yet come out but was in the process of being released) in soundalike versions so there would be stereo versions of the songs on the album -- so the stereo and mono versions of Otis Blue actually have different performances of those songs on them. It shows how intense the work rate was at Stax -- and how good they were at their jobs -- that apart from the opening track "Ole Man Trouble", which had already been recorded as a B-side, all of Otis Blue, which is often considered the greatest soul album in history, was recorded in a twenty-eight hour period, and it would have been shorter but there was a four-hour break in the middle, from 10PM to 2AM, so that the musicians on the session could play their regular local club gigs. And then after the album was finished, Otis left the session to perform a gig that evening. Tom Dowd, in particular, was astonished by the way Redding took charge in the studio, and how even though he had no technical musical knowledge, he would direct the musicians. Dowd called Redding a genius and told Phil Walden that the only two other artists he'd worked with who had as much ability in the studio were Bobby Darin and Ray Charles. Other than those singles and "Ole Man Trouble", Otis Blue was made up entirely of cover versions. There were three versions of songs by Sam Cooke, who had died just a few months earlier, and whose death had hit Redding hard -- for all that he styled himself on Little Richard vocally, he was also in awe of Cooke as a singer and stage presence. There were also covers of songs by The Temptations, William Bell, and B.B. King. And there was also an odd choice -- Steve Cropper suggested that Redding cut a cover of a song by a white band that was in the charts at the time: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] Redding had never heard the song before -- he was not paying attention to the white pop scene at the time, just to his competition on the R&B charts -- but he was interested in doing it. Cropper sat by the turntable, scribbling down what he thought the lyrics Jagger was singing were, and they cut the track. Redding starts out more or less singing the right words: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] But quickly ends up just ad-libbing random exclamations in the same way that he would in many of his live performances: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"] Otis Blue made number one on the R&B album chart, and also made number six on the UK album chart -- Redding, like many soul artists, was far more popular in the UK than in the US. It only made number seventy-five on the pop album charts in the US, but it did a remarkable thing as far as Stax was concerned -- it *stayed* in the lower reaches of the charts, and on the R&B album charts, for a long time. Redding had become what is known as a "catalogue artist", something that was almost unknown in rock and soul music at this time, but which was just starting to appear. Up to 1965, the interlinked genres that we now think of as rock and roll, rock, pop, blues, R&B, and soul, had all operated on the basis that singles were where the money was, and that singles should be treated like periodicals -- they go on the shelves, stay there for a few weeks, get replaced by the new thing, and nobody's interested any more. This had contributed to the explosive rate of change in pop music between about 1954 and 1968. You'd package old singles up into albums, and stick some filler tracks on there as a way of making a tiny bit of money from tracks which weren't good enough to release as singles, but that was just squeezing the last few drops of juice out of the orange, it wasn't really where the money was. The only exceptions were those artists like Ray Charles who crossed over into the jazz and adult pop markets. But in general, your record sales in the first few weeks and months *were* your record sales. But by the mid-sixties, as album sales started to take off more, things started to change. And Otis Redding was one of the first artists to really benefit from that. He wasn't having huge hit singles, and his albums weren't making the pop top forty, but they *kept selling*. Redding wouldn't have an album make the top forty in his lifetime, but they sold consistently, and everything from Otis Blue onward sold two hundred thousand or so copies -- a massive number in the much smaller album market of the time. These sales gave Redding some leverage. His contract with Stax was coming to an end in a few months, and he was getting offers from other companies. As part of his contract renegotiation, he got Jim Stewart -- who like so many people in this story including Redding himself liked to operate on handshake deals and assumptions of good faith on the part of everyone else, and who prided himself on being totally fair and not driving hard bargains -- to rework his publishing deal. Now Redding's music was going to be published by Redwal Music -- named after Redding and Phil Walden -- which was owned as a four-way split between Redding, Walden, Stewart, and Joe Galkin. Redding also got the right as part of his contract negotiations to record other artists using Stax's facilities and musicians. He set up his own label, Jotis Records -- a portmanteau of Joe and Otis, for Joe Galkin and himself, and put out records by Arthur Conley: [Excerpt: Arthur Conley, "Who's Fooling Who?"] Loretta Williams [Excerpt: Loretta Williams, "I'm Missing You"] and Billy Young [Excerpt: Billy Young, "The Sloopy"] None of these was a success, but it was another example of how Redding was trying to use his success to boost others. There were other changes going on at Stax as well. The company was becoming more tightly integrated with Atlantic Records -- Tom Dowd had started engineering more sessions, Jerry Wexler was turning up all the time, and they were starting to make records for Atlantic, as we discussed in the episode on "In the Midnight Hour". Atlantic were also loaning Stax Sam and Dave, who were contracted to Atlantic but treated as Stax artists, and whose hits were written by the new Stax songwriting team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter: [Excerpt: Sam and Dave, "Soul Man"] Redding was not hugely impressed by Sam and Dave, once saying in an interview "When I first heard the Righteous Brothers, I thought they were colored. I think they sing better than Sam and Dave", but they were having more and bigger chart hits than him, though they didn't have the same level of album sales. Also, by now Booker T and the MGs had a new bass player. Donald "Duck" Dunn had always been the "other" bass player at Stax, ever since he'd started with the Mar-Keys, and he'd played on many of Redding's recordings, as had Lewie Steinberg, the original bass player with the MGs. But in early 1965, the Stax studio musicians had cut a record originally intending it to be a Mar-Keys record, but decided to put it out as by Booker T and the MGs, even though Booker T wasn't there at the time -- Isaac Hayes played keyboards on the track: [Excerpt: Booker T and the MGs, "Boot-Leg"] Booker T Jones would always have a place at Stax, and would soon be back full time as he finished his degree, but from that point on Duck Dunn, not Lewie Steinberg, was the bass player for the MGs. Another change in 1965 was that Stax got serious about promotion. Up to this point, they'd just relied on Atlantic to promote their records, but obviously Atlantic put more effort into promoting records on which it made all the money than ones it just distributed. But as part of the deal to make records with Sam and Dave and Wilson Pickett, Atlantic had finally put their arrangement with Stax on a contractual footing, rather than their previous handshake deal, and they'd agreed to pay half the salary of a publicity person for Stax. Stax brought in Al Bell, who made a huge impression. Bell had been a DJ in Memphis, who had gone off to work with Martin Luther King for a while, before leaving after a year because, as he put it "I was not about passive resistance. I was about economic development, economic empowerment.” He'd returned to DJing, first in Memphis, then in Washington DC, where he'd been one of the biggest boosters of Stax records in the area. While he was in Washington, he'd also started making records himself. He'd produced several singles for Grover Mitchell on Decca: [Excerpt: Grover Mitchell, "Midnight Tears"] Those records were supervised by Milt Gabler, the same Milt Gabler who produced Louis Jordan's records and "Rock Around the Clock", and Bell co-produced them with Eddie Floyd, who wrote that song, and Chester Simmons, formerly of the Moonglows, and the three of them started their own label, Safice, which had put out a few records by Floyd and others, on the same kind of deal with Atlantic that Stax had: [Excerpt: Eddie Floyd, "Make Up Your Mind"] Floyd would himself soon become a staff songwriter at Stax. As with almost every decision at Stax, the decision to hire Bell was a cause of disagreement between Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton, the "Ax" in Stax, who wasn't as involved in the day-to-day studio operations as her brother, but who was often regarded by the musicians as at least as important to the spirit of the label, and who tended to disagree with her brother on pretty much everything. Stewart didn't want to hire Bell, but according to Cropper “Estelle and I said, ‘Hey, we need somebody that can liaison between the disc jockeys and he's the man to do it. Atlantic's going into a radio station with six Atlantic records and one Stax record. We're not getting our due.' We knew that. We needed more promotion and he had all the pull with all those disc jockeys. He knew E. Rodney Jones and all the big cats, the Montagues and so on. He knew every one of them.” Many people at Stax will say that the label didn't even really start until Bell joined -- and he became so important to the label that he would eventually take it over from Stewart and Axton. Bell came in every day and immediately started phoning DJs, all day every day, starting in the morning with the drivetime East Coast DJs, and working his way across the US, ending up at midnight phoning the evening DJs in California. Booker T Jones said of him “He had energy like Otis Redding, except he wasn't a singer. He had the same type of energy. He'd come in the room, pull up his shoulders and that energy would start. He would start talking about the music business or what was going on and he energized everywhere he was. He was our Otis for promotion. It was the same type of energy charisma.” Meanwhile, of course, Redding was constantly releasing singles. Two more singles were released from Otis Blue -- his versions of "My Girl" and "Satisfaction", and he also released "I Can't Turn You Loose", which was originally the B-side to "Just One More Day" but ended up charting higher than its original A-side. It's around this time that Redding did something which seems completely out of character, but which really must be mentioned given that with very few exceptions everyone in his life talks about him as some kind of saint. One of Redding's friends was beaten up, and Redding, the friend, and another friend drove to the assailant's house and started shooting through the windows, starting a gun battle in which Redding got grazed. His friend got convicted of attempted murder, and got two years' probation, while Redding himself didn't face any criminal charges but did get sued by the victims, and settled out of court for a few hundred dollars. By this point Redding was becoming hugely rich from his concert appearances and album sales, but he still hadn't had a top twenty pop hit. He needed to break the white market. And so in April 1966, Redding went to LA, to play the Sunset Strip: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Respect (live at the Whisky A-Go-Go)"] Redding's performance at the Whisky A-Go-Go, a venue which otherwise hosted bands like the Doors, the Byrds, the Mothers of Invention, and Love, was his first real interaction with the white rock scene, part of a process that had started with his recording of "Satisfaction". The three-day residency got rave reviews, though the plans to release a live album of the shows were scuppered when Jim Stewart listened back to the tapes and decided that Redding's horn players were often out of tune. But almost everyone on the LA scene came out to see the shows, and Redding blew them away. According to one biography of Redding I used, it was seeing how Redding tuned his guitar that inspired the guitarist from the support band, the Rising Sons, to start playing in the same tuning -- though I can't believe for a moment that Ry Cooder, one of the greatest slide guitarists of his generation, didn't already know about open tunings. But Redding definitely impressed that band -- Taj Mahal, their lead singer, later said it was "one of the most amazing performances I'd ever seen". Also at the gigs was Bob Dylan, who played Redding a song he'd just recorded but not yet released: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman"] Redding agreed that the song sounded perfect for him, and said he would record it. He apparently made some attempts at rehearsing it at least, but never ended up recording it. He thought the first verse and chorus were great, but had problems with the second verse: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman"] Those lyrics were just too abstract for him to find a way to connect with them emotionally, and as a result he found himself completely unable to sing them. But like his recording of "Satisfaction", this was another clue to him that he should start paying more attention to what was going on in the white music industry, and that there might be things he could incorporate into his own style. As a result of the LA gigs, Bill Graham booked Redding for the Fillmore in San Francisco. Redding was at first cautious, thinking this might be a step too far, and that he wouldn't go down well with the hippie crowd, but Graham persuaded him, saying that whenever he asked any of the people who the San Francisco crowds most loved -- Jerry Garcia or Paul Butterfield or Mike Bloomfield -- who *they* most wanted to see play there, they all said Otis Redding. Redding reluctantly agreed, but before he took a trip to San Francisco, there was somewhere even further out for him to go. Redding was about to head to England but before he did there was another album to make, and this one would see even more of a push for the white market, though still trying to keep everything soulful. As well as Redding originals, including "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)", another song in the mould of "Mr. Pitiful", there was another cover of a contemporary hit by a guitar band -- this time a version of the Beatles' "Day Tripper" -- and two covers of old standards; the country song "Tennessee Waltz", which had recently been covered by Sam Cooke, and a song made famous by Bing Crosby, "Try a Little Tenderness". That song almost certainly came to mind because it had recently been used in the film Dr. Strangelove, but it had also been covered relatively recently by two soul greats, Aretha Franklin: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Try a Little Tenderness"] And Sam Cooke: [Excerpt: Sam Cooke, "Live Medley: I Love You For Sentimental Reasons/Try a Little Tenderness/You Send Me"] This version had horn parts arranged by Isaac Hayes, who by this point had been elevated to be considered one of the "Big Six" at Stax records -- Hayes, his songwriting partner David Porter, Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Booker T. Jones, and Al Jackson, were all given special status at the company, and treated as co-producers on every record -- all the records were now credited as produced by "staff", but it was the Big Six who split the royalties. Hayes came up with a horn part that was inspired by Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come", and which dominated the early part of the track: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness"] Then the band came in, slowly at first: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness"] But Al Jackson surprised them when they ran through the track by deciding that after the main song had been played, he'd kick the track into double-time, and give Redding a chance to stretch out and do his trademark grunts and "got-ta"s. The single version faded out shortly after that, but the version on the album kept going for an extra thirty seconds: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness"] As Booker T. Jones said “Al came up with the idea of breaking up the rhythm, and Otis just took that and ran with it. He really got excited once he found out what Al was going to do on the drums. He realized how he could finish the song. That he could start it like a ballad and finish it full of emotion. That's how a lot of our arrangements would come together. Somebody would come up with something totally outrageous.” And it would have lasted longer but Jim Stewart pushed the faders down, realising the track was an uncommercial length even as it was. Live, the track could often stretch out to seven minutes or longer, as Redding drove the crowd into a frenzy, and it soon became one of the highlights of his live set, and a signature song for him: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Try a Little Tenderness (live in London)"] In September 1966, Redding went on his first tour outside the US. His records had all done much better in the UK than they had in America, and they were huge favourites of everyone on the Mod scene, and when he arrived in the UK he had a limo sent by Brian Epstein to meet him at the airport. The tour was an odd one, with multiple London shows, shows in a couple of big cities like Manchester and Bristol, and shows in smallish towns in Hampshire and Lincolnshire. Apparently the shows outside London weren't particularly well attended, but the London shows were all packed to overflowing. Redding also got his own episode of Ready! Steady! Go!, on which he performed solo as well as with guest stars Eric Burdon and Chris Farlowe: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, Chris Farlowe and Eric Burdon, "Shake/Land of a Thousand Dances"] After the UK tour, he went on a short tour of the Eastern US with Sam and Dave as his support act, and then headed west to the Fillmore for his three day residency there, introducing him to the San Francisco music scene. His first night at the venue was supported by the Grateful Dead, the second by Johnny Talbot and De Thangs and the third by Country Joe and the Fish, but there was no question that it was Otis Redding that everyone was coming to see. Janis Joplin turned up at the Fillmore every day at 3PM, to make sure she could be right at the front for Redding's shows that night, and Bill Graham said, decades later, "By far, Otis Redding was the single most extraordinary talent I had ever seen. There was no comparison. Then or now." However, after the Fillmore gigs, for the first time ever he started missing shows. The Sentinel, a Black newspaper in LA, reported a few days later "Otis Redding, the rock singer, failed to make many friends here the other day when he was slated to appear on the Christmas Eve show[...] Failed to draw well, and Redding reportedly would not go on." The Sentinel seem to think that Redding was just being a diva, but it's likely that this was the first sign of a problem that would change everything about his career -- he was developing vocal polyps that were making singing painful. It's notable though that the Sentinel refers to Redding as a "rock" singer, and shows again how different genres appeared in the mid-sixties to how they appear today. In that light, it's interesting to look at a quote from Redding from a few months later -- "Everybody thinks that all songs by colored people are rhythm and blues, but that's not true. Johnny Taylor, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King are blues singers. James Brown is not a blues singer. He has a rock and roll beat and he can sing slow pop songs. My own songs "Respect" and "Mr Pitiful" aren't blues songs. I'm speaking in terms of the beat and structure of the music. A blues is a song that goes twelve bars all the way through. Most of my songs are soul songs." So in Redding's eyes, neither he nor James Brown were R&B -- he was soul, which was a different thing from R&B, while Brown was rock and roll and pop, not soul, but journalists thought that Redding was rock. But while the lines between these things were far less distinct than they are today, and Redding was trying to cross over to the white audience, he knew what genre he was in, and celebrated that in a song he wrote with his friend Art

Muddy Waters is one of the most, if not the most, influential blues guitarist. But what acoustic guitar lessons can we learn from his approach to music? In this episode, we'll cover 10 aspects of Muddy Waters' playing. Each lesson focuses on a different technique, approach, or stylistic choice. From minimalism to alternating octaves, there's something to learn no matter your skill level. So much of the blues is rooted in history, and there are plenty of blues musicians prior to Muddy Waters that informed his playing style. Much of this lesson is informed by "Can't Be Satisfied" by Robert Gordon. If you want to learn more about Muddy Waters and his influences, be sure to check out this book! Besides learning guitar-specific techniques, you'll also see specific examples of Muddy Waters' approach to music. Some of these are a little philosophical and heady, but they're super important. From learning the meaning perseverance to finding your musical family, I hope you resonate with one of these Muddy Waters' lessons.  Featured in this episode... - Active Melody   - Play Country Blues   - Mule Resonator Guitars   - Thompson Guitars - Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley - Mighty Poplar   - Joseph The Band - Free Dirt Records   - Compass Records   - Nickel Creek   - Candy Rat Records   - Caitlin Canty   - Pisgah Banjo Company  

Once again we have a show devoted primarily to material I’ve been listening to around the house. Honestly, since it was announced that Television’s Tom Verlaine had passed away on January 28, 2023, I have wanted to do a little tribute to him on The Ledge. So tonight you can hear a handful of his classic Television and solo tunes. RIP. There’s also a wide variety of tunes that comprise almost 60 years of rock and roll. There’s a handful of garage rock classics from the acclaimed Pebbles series. There’s a track from one of Robert Gordon’s collaborations with guitarist Link Wray. There’s also a sort of tribute to Burt Bachrach in the form of a Stranglers cover that somehow caught my ear a day or so before the announcement of his death. And there’s also a couple of sets of new tunes, primarily songs that were cut from last week’s new release episode, along with more cuts from recent Rum Bar Records releases. I’ve also premiered the newly reissued single from Popsicko on Big Stir Records, which was officially released today. (Look for a full album later this spring). Don’t think that I’ve forgotten about my yearlong sub-theme, “52 […]

Once again we have a show devoted primarily to material I've been listening to around the house. Honestly, since it was announced that Television's Tom Verlaine had passed away on January 28, 2023, I have wanted to do a little tribute to him on The Ledge. So tonight you can hear a handful of his classic Television and solo tunes. RIP. There's also a wide variety of tunes that comprise almost 60 years of rock and roll. There's a handful of garage rock classics from the acclaimed Pebbles series. There's a track from one of Robert Gordon's collaborations with guitarist Link Wray. There's also a sort of tribute to Burt Bachrach in the form of a Stranglers cover that somehow caught my ear a day or so before the announcement of his death. And there's also a couple of sets of new tunes, primarily songs that were cut from last week's new release episode, along with more cuts from recent Rum Bar Records releases. I've also premiered the newly reissued single from Popsicko on Big Stir Records, which was officially released today. (Look for a full album later this spring). Don't think that I've forgotten about my yearlong sub-theme, “52 […]

This week Steve says goodbye to a number of the artists who passed away in 2022.  Not all of them, but a good number.  We will be hearing these artists this week: Budgie, Ronnie Spector, The Ventures, Syl Johnson, Screaming Trees, Sponge, Foo Fighters, The Saints, Earth, Wind & Fire, Depeche Mode, Yes, Teenage Head, Buddy Holly, Robert Gordon with Link Wray, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Boomtown Rats, Jah Wobble & Keith Levene, Dr. Feelgood, The Stranglers, The Specials.   On the Air on Bedford 105.1 FM Radio      *** 5pm Friday ***      *** 10am Sunday ***      *** 8pm Monday *** Stream live at http://209.95.50.189:8178/stream Stream on-demand most recent episodes at https://wbnh1051.podbean.com/category/suburban-underground/ And available on demand on your favorite podcast app! Twitter: @SUBedford1051  ***    Facebook: SuburbanUndergroundRadio   ***    Instagram: SuburbanUnderground   ***    #newwave #altrock #alternativerock #punkrock #indierock  

This is a deep look at the creative forces that have left the world in the past year. We've included figures from all sorts of creative pursuits! Whether aged and iconic, after long illness or suddenly shocking, we feel the loss of those with whom we've shared something. In this case...it's music, something so integral to our lives.  2022 not only continued  a dreary trend that we noticed a few years back, this year took it an unreal level. This is also an exercise in remembering what we had in those who've died. Their spirit and their music...So grab some Kleenex, and join us for as inclusive a memoriam as we can compose...We love our sponsors!!! Please visit their web sites, and support them because they make this crazy show go:Boldfoot Socks   https://boldfoot.comCrooked Eye Brewery   https://crookedeyebrewery.com/Don't forget that you can find all of our episodes, on-demand, for free right here on our web site: https://imbalancedhistory.com/  

So much has changed since David Uosikkinen & Kenny Aaronson were guests on the podcast, separately back in 2019! Their musical friendship has grown, even during the pandemic. We talk about each of their own activities (The Hooters for David, and The Yardbirds for Kenny), and, no spoilers, but Ken uncorks a fun surprise, amidst his stories.We get an update on In The Pocket, Dave's Philly-centric collective,  with the latest news on that project. Plus, they both discuss their involvement in the Lest We Forget recorded tribute organization, and their part in honoring Charlie Watts!But the episode starts with, and centers around, the recent passing of Robert Gordon, and what he meant to both of them. If you're a fan, it can help serve as a bit of grieving. Just remember, they knew him well...So, get set for a fun, high-paced listen with 4 friends "in the quad!"Episode Links:"Lest We Forget""In The Pocket"Tickets link for New Year's Eve in Lititz, PA with the guys and Annabella from Bow Wow Wow!!! We love our sponsors!!! Please visit their web sites, and support them because they make this crazy show go:Boldfoot Socks   https://boldfoot.comCrooked Eye Brewery   https://crookedeyebrewery.com/Don't forget that you can find all of our episodes, on-demand, for free right here on our web site: https://imbalancedhistory.com/   

So much has changed since David Uosikkinen & Kenny Aaronson were guests on the podcast, separately back in 2019! Their musical friendship has grown, even during the pandemic. We talk about each of their own activities (The Hooters for David, and The Yardbirds for Kenny), and, no spoilers, but Ken uncorks a fun surprise, amidst his stories.We get an update on In The Pocket, Dave's Philly-centric collective,  with the latest news on that project. Plus, they both discuss their involvement in the Lest We Forget recorded tribute organization, and their part in honoring Charlie Watts!But the episode starts with, and centers around, the recent passing of Robert Gordon, and what he meant to both of them. If you're a fan, it can help serve as a bit of grieving. Just remember, they knew him well...So, get set for a fun, high-paced listen with 4 friends "in the quad!"Episode Links:"Lest We Forget""In The Pocket"Tickets link for New Year's Eve in Lititz, PA with the guys and Annabella from Bow Wow Wow!!! We love our sponsors!!! Please visit their web sites, and support them because they make this crazy show go:Boldfoot Socks   https://boldfoot.comCrooked Eye Brewery   https://crookedeyebrewery.com/Don't forget that you can find all of our episodes, on-demand, for free right here on our web site: https://imbalancedhistory.com/   

Hot on the heels of Part 1 comes Part 2 of our Record Store Day Black Friday 2022 preview. This time, Marshall Crenshaw does a deep dive on his landmark eponymous 1982 debut album, and talks about Robert Gordon, legendary record producer Tom Wilson, and why the term "power pop" always wrankled him. DEVO co-founder Gerald V. Casale unveils his brand new solo EP, The Invisible Man. Todd Rundgren pops by briefly to remember his 1972 album Something/Anything? and Brian Aubert from Silversun Pickups talks about Silversun VIGups, their joint RSD Black Friday single with Garbage's Butch Vig. RSD co-founder Carrie Colliton discusses some "pairings" on her RSD Black Friday wishlist.  RSD Black Friday is November 25, go to RecordStoreDay.com for the whole list. Sponsored as always by Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Tito's Handmade Vodka, and Crosley turntables. Please subscribe the Record Store Day Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Happy Thanksgiving to those who observe.

We combine our Green Room and Two-nami segments this week to honor the late, great Robert Gordon who unfortunately passed away on October 18th, 2022.  We hear him talking about playing with Link Wray on his first 2 albums along with a track from one of those and a track from his upcoming Cleopatra Records release with guitarist Chris Spedding.  Beth Riley has another fun deep track in her Surf's Up: Beth's Beach Boys Break and as always we'll drop a coin in the Jammin' James Jukebox to hear our selection of the week.  There's a track from both The Surfrajettes and Reverend Horton Heat who will be touring together early 2023 and songs from Satan's Pilgrims, Hawaiian Roller Coaster, Didi Wray, The Smithereens, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Los Choppers, Bowling For Soup, The Brain Waves, The Slimetones, The Mach IV, Kincaid & The Memetics and Surf Cult.   Intro music bed: "Catch A Wave"- The Beach Boys   The Brain Waves- "Torpedo Juice" The Slimetones- "Slime and Punishment" Surf Cult- "Let's Play Hide The Soul" Kincaid & The Memetics- "The Out Of Towners" *Bob Ross snippet Red Hot Chili Peppers- "Shoot Me A Smile" Los Choppers- "Electro Mostro" Didi Wray- "Dracula's Theme" (cover of The Ghouls) Satan's Pilgrims- "Southwester"   Surf's Up: Beth's Beach Boys Break: The Beach Boys- "Cherry, Cherry Coupe" Follow "Surf's Up: Beth's Beach Boys Break" HERE   Bowling For Soup- "Gilligan's Island Theme"   *The Surfrajettes- "Roxy Roller" *Reverend Horton Heat- "Forbidden Jungle" Tour dates HERE   Green Room/Two-Nami segment: Robert Gordon on playing with Link Wray Robert Gordon with Link Wray- "The Way I Walk" Robert Gordon with Chris Spedding- "One Day Left"   Jammin' James Jukebox selection of the week: The Hi-Lites (feat. Randy Hard)- "Beach Baby"   The Smithereens- "Out Of This World" Hawaiian Roller Coaster- "Jellyfish Sting" The Mach IV- "The Coast Road"   Outro music bed: Eddie Angel- "Deuces Wild"